


the stars look very different today

by Pallanwen



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Aredhel doesn't want to deal with this shit, Fingon is very stubborn, Fish - or rather elf - out of water, M/M, Maedhros is still haunted, Post-Canon Fix-It, Slow Build, Time Travel - sort of, after the end, and Maglor discovers glamrock, it's the seventies baby!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-02-24 07:28:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 23,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13208883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pallanwen/pseuds/Pallanwen
Summary: "Excuse me," Fingon began. "But I do seem to have trouble with my memory. My name and where I'm from must seem very strange to you. But I really don't remember much of what happened to me since I crossed the sea. It must be the accident. So could you..." he looked from the woman in white towards the man with the helmet. "Could you please tell me where I am and what the current date is?"The man sighed. "In case you -really- don't know: This is the city of London. And it's October the 10th 1972. Or at least it was the case the last time I looked"* * *Maedhros has been released from the Halls of Mandos and Fingon tries to track him down in the Hither Lands where things have changed a lot since the last Eldar have left for the Blessed Realms...





	1. The Halls of Awaiting

It was that time of the year again. Although there were no seasons in Valinor, where the balmy air never cooled off and the trees never lost their leaves, fiery Anar had completed another circle around the marred Arda. Which meant that Fingon the Valiant, eldest son of Fingolfin and former High King of the Noldor, once again traveled to the halls of Mandos to fulfil an old promise.

How many years had passed since he had returned from the halls himself? Fingon had spent more than two ages of the world in their grey, cobwebbed darkness, alone with his memories. Repenting, meditating on past mistakes, trapped in a barely-conscious dreamstate. It had been so long that time had lost all meaning. Ages of grief, endless repetitions of the kinslaying at Alqualondë, the exodus across the grinding ice of the Helcaraxë, then tragedy upon tragedy during the long years in Beleriand until it all ended in Balrog fire. And every time the tapestry of memories reached its cruel end, the mists of Mandos welled up and it started all over again. And again. Fingon's existence had become a mere shadow, a memory, rather than a person.

Until the day, the silent twilight of the halls had washed off the last drop of kinslaying blood. The day Námo Mandos himself had led Fingon through the tall grey gates of his realm and sent him back towards the light.

This had been a long time ago. Arda had entered its Fourth Age and many years had passed, during which Fingon had rejoined his family and made a new life for himself in the city of Tirion, glad to find out that his father and his siblings had also been released from Mandos. The house of Fingolfin was together again, frolicking in the splendour of a rebuilt Valinor – almost as if the tragic events of the First Age had never happened.

And still, here he was, standing in front of the gates of Mandos again. Year after Year he came to the western edge of Aman – a journey that him almost two weeks – and still, he never missed it. He had made a promise, very soon after he himself had been released from the Halls of Awaiting. A promise made, once he had realized who of the Noldor had been freed - and who hadn't...

No matter how often he came here, the gates of Mandos hadn't lost anything of their majesty. Sky-high and dusty grey, carved with intricate patterns and ornaments that curled and swirled and revealed a vision of the history of all Arda, if you only looked close enough. Contemplating them for too long still gave Fingon a headache.

To the left and right, monumental walls of undecorated granite stretched as far as the eye could see. If you strained your ears, you could hear the sound of the sea in the distance. The waves of Ekkaia splashed against the western foundation of Mandos‘ halls – a reminder that even out here, not everything was death and stone and silence. 

Fingon sighed, tied his horse to a sturdy-looking pine tree and approached the gates. During the first few times he had come here, he had blown his horn. His visit had been meant as a challenge – something akin to his heroic deeds of old, now fading memories from beyond the sea. It had been to no avail. Neither had the screaming and shouting been of any use. Neither the bargaining.

Nowadays, he simply knocked at the door. The sound of his gloved fingers made a tiny "pock" before it was swallowed by the endless stretches of grey, seasalt-bleached wood.

Nevertheless, the gates swung open. They always did.

There in the darkness stood the tall cloaked figure of Námo Mandos, keeper of the slain and lord of the Halls of Awaiting.

He spoke before Fingon could even begin to ask his question.

"You are too late, Findekáno. He has already left.

This wasn't the answer, Fingon had expected.

He just stared, open-mouthed.

High above him, the Vala's pale face loomed under a hood as dark as the night sky. His eyes were black holes with no discernible emotion. The air hummed with the sheer power of his presence. Here stood one of the guardians and shapers of the world, the doomsman of the Valar, who rarely spoke, but whose every word carried grave meaning – and he had just managed to leave Fingon flabbergasted.

" _What_?!" was the only word, that left his mouth, once he had regained the ability to speak.

All those years, the answer had always been the same: 

" _Can I speak to Nelyafinwë, son of Curufinwë_?" Fingon had asked, " _When will he be released from the Halls of Awaiting_?"

" _No_ ,“ had always been Mandos' reply. " _His oath and his crimes still bind him and he has not yet paid for his deeds. He will not be released until the end of the world_."

The same dialogue had been exchanged for centuries. Until today.

"Why... Where...,“ Fingon stammered. "Where is he now?"

Was that a shrug? The small movement in Mandos cloaked shoulders? Or just a patch of fog drifting by in the vast halls that opened up behind him?

"I cannot tell you, where the son of Curufinwë has gone," he said. "Only that he has left the Undying Lands. You will not find him in Valinor."

"But... But I‘ve been _waiting_ for him! All those years! You know everything, Mandos! You knew I was coming. Why didn’t you ask him to wait for me? Why didn’t you tell him to stay?"

„This is not in my power,“ Mandos‘ dark voice rang out in Fingon's head. You never actually _heard_ the Valar speak. Not with your ears. Their voices entered your thoughts and it was as if you only remembered them having spoken.

„I cannot give orders to the children of Ilúvatar,“ Mandos said. „I speak judgement, when they come to me and I host them in my halls, but I do not tell them what to do. Their decisions are theirs to make.“

Fingon knew all this. He had spoken in haste, a habit, even aeons in Mandos‘ halls and centuries of peace in Valinor hadn’t been able to cure. But right now, he felt like the foundations of his world – everything he had built up since his return to the world of the living – had just been pulled from underneath his feet.

„Please, could you at least tell me where he has gone? Where I should be looking for him?“ 

„Not in this realm,“ said Mandos  - and that was it. His final words before the gates to his halls swung shut.

Fingon remained outside. Alone and shaken. His hands were trembling, when he reached for the reins and tried to mount his horse. He had to pause and take several long deep breaths.

But even when he finally managed to climb onto his steed and began the long ride home, back to the city of Tirion, it took a while, until the full extent of Mandos‘ words sunk in.

Maedhros had left the Halls of Awaiting. The first of the sons of Fëanor has returned into this world. Maedhros was back – and after all these years _Fingon might see him again_.


	2. A Dispute Among Siblings

„Maedhros is back?“ asked Aredhel. „Please, Fingon, don’t tell me you’re going to do anything stupid. Not again!“ 

Turgon nodded in agreement. The flowery branch of the cherry tree that curved over the bench he and Aredhel were sitting on, cast dancing shadows over his face, which accentuated his frown. Fingon had invited both of his siblings to his garden house in the outskirts of Tirion and he was already starting to regret it.

„Our sister is right,“ said Turgon. „This reeks of another rescue mission and you know, where these things lead with you.“

„To a centuries long peace between our house and the sons of Fëanor?“ said Fingon, who now very much wished he hadn’t told his siblings about his journey to the gates of Mandos. “To the Black Foe of Arda being robbed of his most important hostage? You can blame me for many things, but not for rescuing my friend, when he was captured and close to being tortured to death in Thangorodrim!”

“Your ‘friend’...,” said Aredhel darkly, and Fingon pretended he didn’t hear her.

Thankfully, Turgon, polite as he was, ignored her remark as well.

“What I meant, Fingon, is that you’re prone to put yourself in danger, without thinking of the bigger picture," he said. "The days of heroic missions are over, brother mine. We‘re not in Beleriand anymore!“

„Yes, and that also means, we're not facing Beleriand's dangers – which, by the way, lie several thousand years in the past now. Morgoth has been vanquished and banned from this world! And his servant has been beaten as well. There is no dark lord anymore – neither in the Blessed Realm nor outside. We don’t need to hide!“

"I don't understand, why you're even thinking about leaving Valinor," Turgon said. "We have everything we want here. What’s left for us beyond the sea? Our kingdoms are long gone, the last Eldar have sailed away. The Hither Lands belong to the Men now.“

„Maedhros might be there,“ said Fingon. „Or somewhere else. There are many lands in Arda we‘ve never traveled to, maybe never even heard of. All Mandos has told me, is that he is not in Valinor anymore.“

Turgon sighed. „Don't tell me you're willing to risk the peace we're having here for some friendship from seven thousand years ago?“

"You know what happened when the Noldor left the Blessed Realm for the first time," Aredhel added. "And you know, what end the decisions of your dear 'friend' have led to. Think about the Teleri." 

"Not only the Teleri," Turgon said. "You weren't there anymore, but you've heard what Fëanor‘s sons have done to Doriath. And that wasn't all. There was a third kinslaying at the Havens of the Sirion."

"I cried for days, when I heard about Doriath - even here, in Valinor," Aredhel added. "I can't bear to think about it - unbelievable, that I once called Celegorm and Curufin my friends!"

"I know, I know, I know," said Fingon. He had thought about little else during his ride back to Tirion. _„Why am I trying to save a kinslayer? The son of Fëanor, who brought the doom over our whole people?“_

Deep inside he knew the answer. The true answer. But he would be damned, if he admitted it to his siblings. Even after all those years of peace, there were things still kept unsaid in the house of Fimgolfin. Most of the time, they all pretended, it was better that way.

„I want to talk to him,“ he eventually said. „I want to know what he’s like now, after Mandos. You both know he was once ... very dear to me and I simply can’t bear the thought that he is out there somewhere and I haven’t even tried to speak to him. And Mandos only told me, Maedhros has left the Undying lands – there was no word that it is forbidden to search for him...“

Silence. The birds in the cherry tree seemed to sing much louder now. For a long time, their chirping was the only sound that rung out in the garden.

Fingon was sure, Turgon and Aredhel both knew - or at least very strongly suspected - about the true nature of his friendship with Maedhros back in Valinor and afterwards, during the long peace in Beleriand.

Turgon, however, had never talked about it. He wasn’t keen on confrontation. Fingon's younger brother liked strong walls and sitting things out. He was like his father in that regard – he kept his feelings inside and hoped for the best.

Aredhel was her brother‘s opposite in that regard. She loved a challenge and never shied away from an argument. But if life in Beleriand had taught her one thing, it was how one unhappy relationship had the power to destroy a whole kingdom.

Finally – the birds had left the cherry tree and were now looking for food at a hawthorn bush at the other end of the garden – Aredhel was the first one to speak.

„He really is that important to you?“ Her voice was soft like bird‘s down.

Fingon nodded. 

„I don’t understand you at all, Fingon,“ Aredhel said. „But I know a thing or two about tying your fate to the wrong person.“

Turgon gave her an angry look under dark brows. Even after all these years, the topic of Aredhel and Ëol and their son, who had cost Turgon his kingdom, was a sensitive one. Another addition of the long list of Things The House of Fingolfin Didn‘t Talk About...

He rose from the bench.

“It’s time to get back home,” he said. “And I’ll pray to Ilúvatar to grant you a little wisdom, brother mine.”

He patted Fingon on the shoulder. “Just think a little, before you do anything too ... valiant,” he said.


	3. The Lord of Waters

After Aredhel left as well, Fingon opened a bottle of wine. Then another. It was a quality vintage from the slopes of the southern Pelóri, but all too soon the bitter-sweet flavour began to cling heavily to his tongue and the roof of his mouth. It's cloying taste already spoke of tomorrow’s headache. But at least the wine offered a night of dreamless sleep. After days of being haunted by Maedhros’ face whenever he closed his eyes, the thought of a few hours of oblivion seemed rather promising.

With a heavy head, Fingon fell asleep.

He didn’t dream of Maedhros that night. Instead, he found himself at the seashore.

Grey waves came crashing down onto a nondescript shore: grey sand and dark pebbles with high cliffs, the colour of charcoal, in the distance. Maybe this was Nevrast, Turgon's old domain in southern Beleriand, maybe somewhere entirely else, a region unknown by elves and Men. 

The sharp cries of seagulls pierced the air – and no matter, how many millennia might pass, this was a sound, Fingon would always associate with Alqualonde. The sorrowful cry of the great white birds was inextricably linked with the blood on the planks of the white ships and the screams of the dying Teleri. It made him recall the way the furor of battle had transformed Fëanor and his sons into raging demons, not better than any creature of Morgoth‘s brood – and how the spell of bloodlust hadn't spared Fingolfin's sons either.

There was salt on Fingon's tongue, a taste that too easily changed into the coppery aroma of freshly-spilt blood. The taste of ancient guilt, even after all those years in Mandos.

The cry of the seagulls grew louder, mixed with the roaring sound of the sea when a great wave rose up. Higher and higher it piled up, refusing to break until it transformed into a towering figure. Flowing dark hair formed from kelp and seagrass, framing a face as pale as the white crests on the waves and eyes as blue-green and magnificent as the icebergs of the Helcaraxë. Ulmo, the Lord of Water, had risen from the depths. He wore shining armour made from fish scales, sea shells and walrus bones and brought the smell of salt and seaweed with him. Seagulls circled this head like the mast of a tall ship.

"The one you seek has left Valinor," his deep voice rung out in Fingon's head.

Even in his dream, the appearance of the Vala sent a humming sensation through Fingon's body - like his nerves and muscles weren't made to withstand the presence of one of the powers that had shaped the very substance of Arda. There was a booming sound – a mixture of crashing waves and the sound of great horns in the distance – that resounded within Fingon's head, when Ulmo spoke, making it hard for him to think.

Over the roar of the waves, Fingon struggled for a reply. 

„I... I know that already. Mandos told me.“

The flowing kelp and the seashells that made up Ulmo‘s crown moved in what appeared to be a nod. 

„Nelyafinwë has been released from the Halls of Mandos. He was free to dwell in the Undying Lands – but it was also his own free will to leave.“

„But why? And where did he go?“ Everything within Fingon boiled down to these two questions and he almost choked on his words. Ulmo heard him nevertheless.

„I can tell you only one thing,“ the Vala said. „Nelyafinwë left the shores of Aman and sailed to the Hither Lands. But the realms of Men have greatly changed and even the Valar cannot say if he is going to find what he seeks there.“

„To Middle Earth. Why did I already suspect that?“ Fingon thought. Still, hot excitement flooded through him. To Middle Earth! Maedhros had sailed across the sea and he was looking for something - or someone- in the realms of Men. This was more information than anything he had received since he had left Mandos nearly two weeks ago!

He head himself say: „I will sail after him! I will go to the Hither Lands and find Maedhros. If you can tell me, how...“ 

Ulmo looked him in the eyes and Fingon shivered. 

"He knows," he thought. "He knows everything what happened between us, back in Beleriand. He knows, why I still can't let go."

But if the Lord of Waters knew, he didn't let it show. Only the colour of his eyes changed from blue-green to a stormy grey, as quick as the waves on a water surface change direction in the wind. 

"If you follow him, you must go alone," he said. "The Eldar are not expected to leave Valinor after the Changing of the World. Few ships have arrived over the Straight Road and only one Elda has since returned to the Hither Lands. You, Findekáno, would be the second."

Maybe it was the many years of peace in Valinor that made Fingon do it. The lack of a challenge, of any real danger after a lifetime of battle and hardship back in Beleriand. Maybe it was his old hasty and brazen nature that had made him go with Fëanor and his songs – a nature even two ages in Mandos hadn't be able to cure. Maybe it was his boldness and the inability to say no. Whatever the reason – Ulmo had hardly finished his sentence when Fingon nodded and raised his hand, answering to a question not even posed.

"I'll do it! I'll be the second one and sail after him."

Was it just the sound of the waves, or did the Lord of Water sigh?

"The Valar have relinquished their dominion over the bended world," he said. "And although two thirds of it are covered by water. I have very little power there. I will only be able to keep the door open for a day. You will arrive at midnight and you will have to finish your quest before midnight. Otherwise you will not be able to return through the Straight Road."

Fingon just nodded. He was too far in now, there was no honourable way out of this. And he wasn't called "the Valiant" for nothing.

"I will go. And I'll return in time – together with my friend."

"So be it," Ulmo said. "When you leave this dream, you will find a boat that will take you to the Hither Lands." For a second, the thin line of his lips curved up into what could be described as a smile. "I wish you the best of luck, Findekáno." Then the big grey wave that had been building behind him like a billowing cloak piled up to its full height and broke. When the foam had dissolved, Ulmo was gone.


	4. Across the Sea

 When Fingon awoke he discovered the boat in front of his house. This was a rather particular circumstance as he had built his villa in the middle of a green meadow with no body of water nearby. The house and its garden were bordering one of the smaller roads that led out of Tirion with neither lake nor river, not even a tiny creek in the vicinity.

However, all this had changed overnight. There was now a cheerful little river running through Fingon‘s front garden. On its blue-greenish waters swam a boat - a small but sturdy caravel with white sails and a hull made from silvery grey wood. Someone had tied it to one of Fingon’s favourite cherry trees, which had already damaged a significant part of the bark, as the current of the river was rather strong.

Fingon rubbed his eyes. The boat was still there. The water gurgled and a fresh breeze billowed the sail.

„Oh, come on, Ulmo, was this really necessary?“

No answer - if you didn’t count the big salmon that chose this very moment to jump out of the river and fall back into the water with a loud splash.

Fingon had meant to talk to Aredhel and Turgon first. Maybe even say goodbye to his father. He had been planning to do all the proper preparations he hadn’t managed before his rescue mission to Thangorodrim in the First Age. He had meant to be _sensible_.

Apparently, the Lord of Water saw things differently.

The boat bobbed on the waves – Fingon had to admit, it looked rather inviting. The longer he looked, the more he felt the old adventurous spirit rise inside him. After all these years in Tirion, where the most exciting activities were hunting, gem-making or helping Turgon plan his ever-unfinished project of building a new city in the Calacirya, the prospect of a journey into unknown territory made his heart sing. And then there was the suddenly very real chance that he might see Maedhros again... 

Fingon sighed. Then he shrugged his shoulders and laughed. Why was he fooling himself? He had already made his decision.

He went back inside and started packing. It didn't take long. After he had dressed in travel clothes and wrapped spare clothes and food supplies into a bundle, he hesitated for a moment. Then he packed his harp as well – he hadn't really played after he returned from Mandos, but for some reason it felt wrong not to have a musical instrument in his house. It also reminded him of those agonizing moments high on the cliffs of Thangorodrim, where he had played the harp until Maedhros had answered his song. Maybe it would also bring him luck on this journey.

Then he took his bow and arrows from their place on the wall of the entrance hall. It's been several years since he had last gone hunting with Aredhel and in the peaceful lands of Aman he didn't use weapons for any other purpose.

After they were released from the Halls of Awaiting the returning Noldor had sworn not to ever carry swords in Valinor again. After all, it had been Fëanor and his sons who had first forged weapons meant solely for killing other elves. And it had also been Fëanor who had first drawn a sword against his brother and thus set the events in motion that eventually led to the doom of the Noldor.

No weapons beside his bow, arrow and a hunting knife then – in the hope that he wouldn't encounter any balrogs in this new and changed version of Middle Earth.

When he was almost done packing, a final idea came to Fingon's mind. He gathered a handful of small gems and gold pieces that had been placed on a dresser in the atrium, mainly for decorative purposes. In Valinor gems like these were plentiful, but he knew from experience, that gold and jewels were scarce in the Hither Lands and that Men and dwarves were just as keen on precious stones as the Noldor had been. And you never knew where you could exchange these sparkly treasures for more useful goods – food, drink, or even weapons stronger than a simple hunting bow... 

Dressed in his dark blue traveling cloak, made from thick wool, and with his bundle and bow and quiver on his back, Fingon paused for one last moment. Then he grabbed quill and parchment and wrote a short note for Aredhel and Turgon – or Fingolfin, should he ever drop by and visit him these days.

"Dear Aredhel, dear Turgon, dear father – I'm traveling to the East, to the Hither Lands with the Lord of Water as my guide. Please don't worry about me – I hope to be back soon." 

He thought about adding another paragraph, some kind of explanation. But when he couldn't think of anything fitting and heard the cry of seagulls – who, together with the boat, clearly hadn't been there before, this far away from the shore – he put down the quill, placed the piece of parchment on the big table in the dining hall and headed for the door, without looking back.

 

* * *

Once he boarded the ship, the caravel began to move on its own. There was no need to set sails or even touch the steering wheel. The ship set into motion and glided along the river as if being pushed by some invisible force - for there was not much wind and the current not strong enough to carry a solid boat like this.

In the beginning, Fingon could still see the familiar buildings of his neighbourhood. When his own villa slid out of view, Turgon‘s house appeared, with silver inlays in its shining columns, steep turrets and beautiful stained glass windows depicting the marvels of Gondolin.

The river made a little curve and circled the small green hill that separated the suburban quarter, where the House of Fingolfin was now residing, from the actual city of Tirion on the hillsides of Mount Túna.

Fingon caught a last glimpse of the white walls and gleaming spires of the Noldorian capital and how brightly they shone in the sunlight. Different, but just as beautiful as they had appeared in the light of the Two Trees all those centuries ago.

Ulmo‘s river formed another curve that embraced the slopes of mount Túna from the left before it made its way to the east - through the Calacirya and towards the sea.

But the ship hadn’t even begun to pass the city of Tirion when mist began to arise from the water. Soft silvery vapours that gradually gained in substance until Fingon’s whole field of vision was covered in thick grey nothingness. He could feel the boat gaining speed. Waves that hadn’t been there before were rising and falling rapidly below the keel of his little vessel. He clung to the rail, unable to steer or do anything to keep the ship under control.

Despite the grey, Fingon was sure, he wasn’t sailing a river anymore. He smelt salt and seaweed and heard the muffled cries of the gulls over the roar of cascading waves The ship had left Valinor behind and was now in the middle of the open sea. And all Fingon the Valiant could to, was to cling to the rail for his dear life and pray to Ilúvatar and all the Valar that this journey would be over soon.

The storm went on and on until Fingon had lost all sense of time. There was nothing but empty grey and the rage and the screaming of the waves: Ossë doing his best to make the journey as uncomfortable as possible.

It was then, when the vision appeared.

 

* * *

It started with fire. Torches blazing in the black night. The first, terrible night after the destruction of the Trees.

„Be he foe or friend, be he foul or clean,“ Fëanor‘s voice rung out in the red-tinted darkness. „brood of Morgoth or bright Vala...“ He was surrounded by his seven sons, who stood with torches in their hands as they swore their terrible oath.

"Neither law, nor love, nor league of swords / dread nor danger, not doom itself / shall defend him from Fëanor, and Fëanor's kin!"

There was Maedhros, his red hair bright in the firelight. The fire in his eyes mirrored the burning torch in his hand as he spoke words that couldn't be undone.

"...whoso hideth or hoardeth, or in hand taketh / finding keepeth or afar casteth /a Silmaril." 

The sheer sight was enough to make Fingon shiver. All the old feelings washed over him again. The innocence of the early days, when the fact that Fëanor‘s and Fingolfin's eldest son spent most of their days together was simply known as "friendship". The feverish weeks of unrest, as the rebellion of the Noldor began and Fëanor‘s speeches sowed doubt in their hearts – and how once Maedhros had proclaimed he was following his father out of Aman and into the east, it had been crystal clear to Fingon that he was coming with him.

And then the darkness and the oath. The terrible oath. This one had been Maedhros' doing alone – the first of his deeds Fingon had wanted no part in.

"This swear we all: / death we will deal him ere day's ending, /woe unto world's end!" 

Maedhros was the first to repeat his father's voice, but his younger brother's voice was the loudest. Almost as tall as Maedhros, but raven-haired and pale-eyed he was: Maglor, the singer, the melancholy genius, and the only one, who could compete with Fingon when it came to Maedhros' affection.

Fingon had always suspected, Maglor _knew_. At the latest during the time in when Maedhros ruled in Himring. By that time, neither Fingon nor Maedhros had taken particular precautions to hide their ..."friendship" when they met at Maedhros' fortress.

"Our word hear thou, Eru Allfather!" the sons of Fëanor were approaching the final part of their oath.

The flickering light of the torches turned Celegorms' white-blond hair into burning gold and made his brother Caranthir even darker.

Curufin, next to them, resembled his father even more than usual in the unsteady light. His cloak and tunic were studded with gems of his own making, almost as magnificent as his father’s creations. Behind his back the twins, Amras and Amrod, who shared Maedhros' copper-red hair, were hiding as they cast nervous looks to the crowd that had assembled around the oathtakers. But still, they spoke the final words together with their brothers:

"To the everlasting / darkness doom us if our deed faileth. / On the holy mountain hear in witness / and our vow remember, Manwë and Varda!"

The vision had long since merged with Fingon's old memories as past and present became one and the feeling of utter dread, of irrevocability that ran through his veins after Fëanor and the seven brothers had spoken, manifested as an almost physical sensation: ice-cold and prickling like molten snow water from the mountains running down the middle of his back.

He didn't need Mandos' prophecy to know, that Maedhros and the others had just doomed themselves.

 

* * *

The memories of the fire and the oath were drowned out by a large wave that hid the boat straight ahead. Spitting water, Fingon scrambled to his feet.

Around him, everything was still solid grey mist. Another wave hit the boat, making it buckle like an untamed horse. He clung to the rail, gasping for breath as wave after wave hit the boat and the wind blew salty foam into his eyes until they stung and he had to squint through tears - nor that there was anything to see in the middle of the fog. Another wave, then another - the boat shook as if it was hit by the battering rams straight from the pits of Angband. Sharp gusts of wind tore at Fingon's hair - the braided strands hit the skin of his neck and face like lashes. He tried to bend down and duck away behind the rail, but to no avail.

The storm had risen to almost unbearable heights. Fingon had no idea how much time had passed, but with every breaker and every squall that hit his vessel, his grip around the railing grew weaker. After centuries in Valinor he was strong and well-nourished, but even a Noldor prince at the height of his power couldn't withstand the brute force of the raging waves for long. Sooner or later he would have to let go  – and his search for Maedhros would end in Ossë's cold embrace, before it had even begun.

But just in the moment when his ice-cold fingers started to lose their grip on the rail, the storm began to calm down. The rough bucking of the boat turned into a harmless skipping and after a short while it ceased altogether. For the first time in a long while the cries of the seagulls could be heard over the sound of the waves. Land must be near.

And there was another sound, a dull droning noise entirely unknown to Fingon. It mixed with a smell: sharp and sooty, like the fumes from Morgoth's chimney's during the siege of Angband. And there were lights that shone through the mist. Pale round lights with a strange glow - unlike torches or oil lamps of the glowing crystals of Fëanorian handiwork. Some of the moved around in the fog, others remained fixed like illuminated windows in the distanced.

And then the boat hit something hard and stood still. The fog lifted and Fingon found himself at the edge of a river - in the middle of a city unlike anything he had ever seen before.


	5. The Unreal City

The boat had bumped against some kind of high embankment, built from grey, smoothly-hewn stone. When Fingon gazed upwards he caught a glimpse of the cloudy night sky, hanging low above rows and rows of buildings that lined up at the edges of the river. Behind those dark, angular shapes loomed even more buildings: towers and domes and palaces made from grey stone and glass and lights and steel. Altogether they formed a giant city – bigger than Tirion, bigger than Gondolin, bigger than the settlements of the dwarves or anything else Fingon had ever encountered in Aman or the Beleriand. 

He had no idea, where he was or how he should ever find Maedhros in the middle of this utter strangeness. Still stunned, he moored his boat at a metal pole protruding from the narrow set of stairs that lead from the embankment down towards the water surface. His legs were shaky when he climbed onto dry land. 

The strange noise, Fingon had heard when still out on the water, was getting louder. It had transformed from an continuous drone into a kind of swishing that came and went – like something or someone was passing in the distance with great speed. But no elf, human or animal that Fingon knew made noises like that.

He reached for his bow, hoping, his frozen and salt-bitten fingers would still be able to draw an arrow, yet alone pull the bowstring. The he began to climb the stairs.

The weird noise grew louder - and at the same time, the ugly smell he had noticed on the river became stronger as well. As if somebody was burning something that was not meant to be burned: wet wood, leather or dead ork flesh. With a shudder, Fingon remembered the Lord of the Balrogs. Usually he tried not to think about it. The last moments of his old life. Before Mandos. The sight of Gothmog towering above him, all shadows and flames and that pungent smell of charred flesh that burnt his eyes, stung into his nose and threatened to make him retch, right in the centre of the battlefield. Albeit less intense, this smell here was rather similar.

"Oh, Ulmo, by Ilúvatar's sake, why did you send me here?"

With bated breath, Fingon advanced higher and higher, until he had reached the end of the stairs. He pulled the bowstring, jumped through the gap in the wall that topped the embankment – but there were no balrogs. Just an empty black road stretching along the embankment with tall, crude buildings at the other side. Not a singe elf or man in sight.

Fingon took a deep breath and lowered his bow. He still had no idea, where he was, but at least he wasn't in immediate danger of being killed (again) by the Valaraukar.

He stepped into the middle of the road, which was paved with a strange black substance that was neither stone nor sand. Unsure how to proceed, Fingon looked to the left, then to the right. No direction looked like he was particularly likely to find a certain red-haired Feanorian there.  So Fingon shrugged, and settled for the left. 

He hadn't walked long – he didn't even pass the slight curve the road had taken to the right – when the droning noise in the background grew louder. And louder. 

It all happened very fast. 

The drone turned into a roar. And suddenly, there were two bright, garish lights in front of him that burned Fingon's eyes and against all better knowledge made him freeze like a rabbit facing a snake. He caught himself, tensed all his muscles and was already in the act of jumping to the side, but he had underestimated, how _fast_ this cursed thing was. And so the last thing he heard was the honking of a terribly distorted horn over the roaring noise, before something _crashed_ and then everything turned black.

 


	6. The House of Healing

When he awoke, he found himself in a white room, unable to move.

His head hurt like it had been clubbed by an angry orc or some other abomination from Morgoth's catacombs. His arms and legs hurt, too, but not as bad. And what was more important: he wasn't able to lift his arms or his legs. As the fog in his aching head lifted, Fingon realized he was tied to some kind of bed. And he wasn't alone. 

There were three people with him, standing at the foot end of the bed. Humans from what was visible of their faces. Two of them, a man and a woman, were dressed in white, the other one, a tall man, wore dark blue. Their clothes were unlike anything Fingon had ever seen before. And they smelled strange - a cold sharp scent, clean, but dead like frosty winter nights. The ones in white were wearing masks that hid the lower parts of their faces -– were they soldiers? Some obscure fighter cast of the Edain he had forgotten about? Or Dark Men, twisted and spoiled by Morgoth's evil? But they weren't carrying weapons and didn't seem hostile. The two humans in white just stood and watched, apparently waiting for Fingon to wake up and show a reaction.

The third one who was dressed in blue and wore a strange helmet seemed less patient. He had his arms crossed in front of his chest and tapped his foot like someone, who had been waiting too long and was eager to leave. He was the first one to speak up.

"He moved," he said. Fingon had trouble making out the words – they resembled some kind of mangled version of the Taliska language some of the Edain had spoken during the First Age. "Is he awake?"

The woman in white shrugged. She was holding something in her hands – a book? No, it was a thin wooden rectangle with a piece of parchment she was now writing on with a slender blue quill, clearly not made from goose feathers.

"He moved, yes," she said. "But that doesn't necessarily mean he is awake. Muscle contractions can lead to involuntary spasms. Especially after a head trauma that has induced potential damage to the brain." 

What she spoke was the language of Men – albeit a late and mangled form, a product of thousands of years that had passed in the Hither lands. Fingon understood her words, but most of their meaning was lost to him. Brain, she said something about a brain – and he had been hit by ...something and lost consciousness. Was she a healer of some kind? But why was he tied up then?

When he looked to the side he noticed there was something wrong with his left arm. A needle that was stuck into his skin, fixed with a piece of bandage and fastened to a thin tube that led towards a strange transparent bag that hung from a metal rod placed next to his bed.

"What sorcery of Morgoth is this?!" he shouted. His voice left his throat as a pitiful croak and ended in a coughing fit.

Fingon shivered and as he moved he felt cold liquid drip from the needle _and into his arm_.

Screaming he tried to pull his arm away, but to no avail. The straps that fixed him to the bed held tight.

"He's definitively awake now," said the human in blue. He stepped closer. His boots made crunching sounds on the floor that was neither wood nor stone.

The man bent down to have a closer look at Fingon's face. He was clean-shaven, unlike most of the humans Fingon had met in Beleriand, but up close, his reddish-blond hair and ruddy skin resembled the Men of the Haladin or the lesser descendants of the house of Hador. His tall helmet shadowed his eyes as he spoke.

"Who are you and where are you from?"

Fingon blinked, swallowed hard and thought if it might be wise to pretend he couldn't understand. But how would he ever be able to get away from his bonds then? The straps that held him to the bed were sturdy work and able to withstand even Noldorian strength – it might be a much better idea to play along. Even if these were creatures of Morgoth –eventually they would release him, if only to transfer him to another quarter – and he could use that opening as his chance to escape.

He cleared his throat and answered as slowly and clearly as he could – his grasp of the tongue of Men had always been atrocious.

"I am Findekáno, son of Ñolofinwë from the city of Tirion. In the world of Men I am known as Fingon."

All three humans just stared. The woman with the writing utensils winced.

"So... you say you're... Finnish?" said the man with the helmet. "I don't understand a bloody word of that gibberish."

"Finnish? I do not understand! No, that's my name. Fingon."

"And where did you say you were from?"

"Tirion. Tiron upon Túna."

The man and the woman in white were whispering to each other. Were they _laughing?_

"Oh come on! Now you're taking the piss out of the!" The man with the helmet, however, was not amused. "You're either playing games with me, you ... Finnish fish hippie, or you're bloody insane!"

He looked to the woman in white. "Is he insane, Doctor Thompson?" 

The woman shook her head. Her fingers clutched tightly around her writing pad. "I haven't run all tests yet- and I wouldn't use the term 'insane', but no, I don't think so. But he is very confused and he just suffered a severe head trauma."

"There, you're not insane, so could you _please_ tell me who you are and were you're from?"

Fingon sighed. "I told you the truth. My name is Fingon and I'm from a city called Tirion. In Valinor, or Aman, as some called it." Wherever he was, these lands had to be very far away from Beleriand or any country that had ever been in contact with the Eldar. "It's in the west, across the sea," he added. 

"Oh, an _American_ ," the man with the helmet drawled. Whatever an 'American' was, it sounded like an insult. "From San Francisco, I guess? With that hair?" He gestured towards Fingon's braids, spread around his head on the pillow.

Playing along until he knew where he was and what was going on still seemed the better idea. So Fingon just nodded.

"If you want to call it that  – yes." He looked around in the room, desperately searching for something, _anything_ that might give him a hint about his whereabouts, but to no avail. All he could see were white walls and a small window that revealed a rectangle of cloudy grey sky, nothing more.

Straining his eyes hadn't been the best idea. The dull throbbing pain behind his forehead – a remnant from the accident – flared up and he winced in pain. 

"He's hurt," the woman in white said – she seemed to be the only one in the room, who actually paid attention to Fingon's wellbeing. "I told you, Constable, it's too early to interview him!"

She turned towards Fingon. "You should rest. A head injury like yours is nothing you should take lightly!"

 _Head injury..._ Suddenly Fingon remembered an event that had taken place during one of his visits to Maedhros' fortress in Himring. A young human scout who had brought news from the mountains had just been about to leave the fortress when his horse shied and he fell upon the stony ground. He had recovered from the head wound he had suffered, but for days on end, he hadn't been able to remember who he was or what had happened to him. It had taken the best healers from Maedhros court to help him recover and even weeks afterwards he still had gaps in his memory.

"Excuse me," Fingon began. "But I do seem to have trouble with my memory. My name and where I'm from must seem very strange to you. But I really don't remember much of what happened to me since I crossed the sea. It must be the accident. So could you..." he looked from the woman in white towards the man with the helmet. "Could you _please_ tell me where I am and what the current date is?"

The man with the helmet sighed. "In case you _really_ don't know: This is the city of London. And it's October the 10th 1972. Or at least it was the case the last time I looked"

Fingon just stared at him blankly. Neither the name of the city or the year meant anything to him – except that he was very far from home and he had no idea what to do next.


	7. The Healer

Unfortunately, the man with the helmet – "the constable" the woman in white had called him – seemed to get even angrier by Fingon's apparent confusion. 

"You can pretend to be a bloody amnesiac for as long as you like, Mr. Finnegan or whatever your name is. But one day you'll tell us why we found you run over by a car in the middle of Milbank, wearing a bow and arrow straight out of a Robin Hood story – and carrying _this_!"

He held up the little bag of gems, Fingon had brought with him. 

"Do you know what this is? No, from that look on your face, you don't. _These jewels are worth a fortune!_ We had them checked by a specialist at the station – these are _real_ emeralds and rubies. Look, do you know what we got here? That's a 100 carats diamond! Now don't tell me you've also forgotten, where you got those, along with your name..." 

"No, I haven't forgotten," Fingon said. "They are mine." 

"And you just _happened_ to carry them in your pocket as you took your little stroll by the Thames?"

"Yes. These are my gems. I swear it by Manwë and Varda. Do the laws of your country forbid to carry your own possessions with you?"

The constable gave him an evil glare, but he didn't reply.

It was the man in white who had remained silent until now, who spoke up.

"Constable, you already told us, you couldn't track these jewels to any of the recent robberies. Now would you _please_ leave our patient alone? He needs rest. Tomorrow he might have recovered enough to answer your questions properly. And maybe you've found more information about the jewels by then."

"There's something off about this bloke, I swear!" the constable said to no one in particular. "I'll be back tomorrow!" He pocketed the bag of jewels – much to Fingon's chagrin – and left the room.

 

Fingon sighed with relief when the door fell shut. He wasn't the only one. The woman in white took a deep breath and turned to her companion. "Thanks for helping me, Lawrence. I think I can take it from here!"

"Are you sure?" the man asked. 

She nodded, her brows knitted with determination. "He's still tied up. You've heard him speak, he doesn't seem to pose a threat to any of us. And you said it yourself, first of all, he's our patient!"

The man gave Fingon a long look. Then he shrugged. "Okay. I'll leave you alone. But do call me, once you get his test results! And if he does anything improper – you know where the emergency button is!"

With that, he left the room.

 

The woman sighed and swept an unruly strand of hair behind her ear. She had reddish locks that peaked out under the white cap she was wearing, Fingon noticed. The colour reminded him of Maedhros and he felt a sharp little sting in his chest. He had travelled such a long way to find his friend and now he was stuck here, at the mercy of this woman who didn't even know she was holding his fate in her hands. 

She sat down on a small stool she pulled out from under a table at the side of the room. Her fingers were still clutching the writing board, but the tension that had held her on edge during the whole conversation with the constable now slowly started to leave her body. Fingon had forgotten how easy it was to read humans. Her relief was so palpable he could almost see it: slow, warm waves seeping from her limbs and into the floor like water being drawn from a tidal pool. But there was something else that now became visible beneath: tension, but of a different kind – the burning curiosity of an explorer, an artist or a scientist. Fingon had felt it in Fëanor's aura when he was about to disappear in his workshop for weeks, ready to tackle a new invention. He had seen it in Maglor's eyes whenever Maedhros' brother found inspiration for a new composition, grabbed his harp and forgot the world around him.

The woman turned towards Fingon and finally pulled the mask down that had covered the lower half of her face. Her eyes were bright like those of the Edain, her mouth a tight little curve.

"What are you?" she asked.

"I told you before and I didn't lie. My name is Fingon, son of Fingolfin. I come from the city of Tirion and I am here in the Hither Lands to look for a lost friend, I mean no harm to any of you."

"No, I mean, _what_ are you? You are not human, are you?"

She held up her writing pad so Fingon could see lines upon lines of unknown characters and intricate diagrams – all illegible to him.

"I've already run your tests, you know? Lawrence – I mean, Doctor Johnson – doesn't know it. But what I have here is your blood work and the results are like nothing I've ever seen before!"

Her fingers run over the lines and when she spoke again it was fast and breathless and Fingon barely understood a word. 

"The number of leucocytes is twice as high as it should be, but still you're showing no symptoms of leukaemia. The erythrocytes are enlarged and shaped unlike anything I have ever seen in the books. And there are at least two kinds of corpuscles that simply have no right to _exist_! What on God's green earth _are_ you? A Russian experiment? But they can't have exposed you to radiation – that was my first idea, but I checked you for ionizing radiation and there's nothing – even fewer ionizing events than there are _supposed_ to be!"

She put the writing pad down and ran a hand through her hair. "It's like you are not from this world!"

"If I tell you, where I'm really from," Fingon asked, "will you untie me? I swear, I will not try to hurt you!" 

For one moment, she hesitated. Then she laughed and began to work on the clasp on the belts that fixed Fingon's right leg.

"I'm sorry! We had to fixate you, because you were having spasms after they brought you in. Your metabolism reacted badly to the painkillers they gave you. And when the police came in the constable liked it that way. He said it was safer until he found out the truth about the jewels and your identity."

When she had untied both his legs and arms and Fingon was finally able to sit up and have a proper look around, he realized that he still wasn't much wiser about his surroundings and whereabouts.

"Before I answer your questions I have one for you," he said. "I have gathered that you are a healer of some kind. And the constable was a guardian who is prosecuting what he believes to be a jewel thief. Is that right? I have told you my name, I guess it's time for you to disclose yours."

She smiled, the first genuine smile Fingon had seen in this weird, noisy, ash-coloured world. "Yes and yes. I'm Doctor Catherine Thompson. I'm the first female doctor in the A&E of St. Thomas Hospital – so yes, I am a healer. But _who are you_ that you don't know what a doctor is or how a hospital works?"

The rational part – the one Turgon, or his father would have liked – told him not to be too quick in trusting this woman. She could be a spy or part of an elaborate trap set up by some remaining followers of Sauron. But did he really have that choice? She had been friendly to him, she had revealed what she knew – or what she thought she knew – and had protected him from the whims of the constable. Right now she was the only means he had for navigating in this strange new world.

"I come from across the sea – but not from the country of  – what do you call it? America? –  that you would reach if you set sail and tried to cross the ocean yourself. I came along the Straight Road, the one that leaves the curved world behind and leads towards the Undying lands. I am an Eldar from the city of Tirion in Valinor. Back in the old days, the humans called us Nómin – and later, we were simply known as elves by them."

"An _elf_?"

"Yes, if you want to call me that. Why is this so funny?"

"You mean elf, like in a fairy tale? Like on the christmas cards from the US? Santa's little helpers?"

She was giggling like a little girl now.

" _An elf_?! I don't believe it!"

Fingon shrugged. "I don't know any of these tales you've named. But I know that Men and Elves both are Children of Ilúvatar, albeit with different gifts. You must live very far in the east that you have never heard of the elves. Not even the Avari? The wood-elves that have never seen the light of Valinor?"

"You know what? If I didn't have these charts that clearly show me that you're ...something else, I'd simply agree with the constable who wants to put you in the loony bin. All these names! And no, I haven't heard of any of them. I do live in the east of London, though. But I doubt that there are many elves in the western boroughs."

She yawned. "Excuse me, but I've been up all night, I need to get me a coffee, before we continue. I really want to measure your brain waves, you know?" 

When the healer looked towards the window, Fingon noticed a few feeble rays of sunlight breaking through the grey clouds. And the realization hit him like a blow on the head, almost worse than the one he had suffered already. 

" _The Valar have relinquished their dominion over the bended world,"_ the memory of Ulmo's voice rang out in his mind. " _And although two thirds of it are covered by water. I have very little power there. I will only be able to keep the door open for a day. You will arrive at midnight and you will have to finish your quest before midnight. Otherwise you will not be able to return through the Straight Road_."

His voice was shaking when he asked: "What... what time of the day is it?" 

"Oh, it's almost noon", answered Doctor Catherine. "My shift has been over for two hours, but I really need to finish these test before anyone else does." 

 _Noon_ – he had twelve hours left. Twelve hours to find Maedhros or we would never be able to return to Valinor.

 

 


	8. Blood work

 "I need to get out of here!" Fingon said. He hated the desperate undertone in his voice, but after the realization had hit, he was barely able to keep it together. He was running out time and he needed to act -now-. "I need to find my friend!"

"Your friend?"

"His name is Maedhros. He is the only reason I came to this world. Did you happen to see him? He might have been as confused as I was. It's been a long time he spent in... since... since he walked the Hither Lands."

It only dawned on him now that Maedhros might not have been so lucky as he had been. What if the strange demon carriages had hit him as well? What if he hadn't been brought to the house of the healing doctors, but was left on the streets? Injured or dying?

"Is your ...friend similar to you?" Doctor Catherine asked. "Is he also an... an... what you call 'elf'?"

 "He is also one of the Eldar, yes. But he is taller than me and he has red hair. And his right hand could be missing."

Fingon wasn't sure if your whole body regenerated when you were released from Mandos. When he had left the halls his old battle scars were gone and his skin had been smooth and glowing like it was in Valinor during the days of the light of the trees. But if your entire hand went missing? Was it possible to regrow a whole limb in Mandos?

" _Could_ be missing?! What do you mean? He either has a right hand or not? Lost it along the way?"

Alright... – maybe it had been unfortunate to mention the hand at all.

"It's difficult to explain," said Fingon, trying to manoeuvre the conversation away from the subject of Maedhros' maybe non-existent limb. "But from that I assume you haven't seen him?"

"No, I haven't seen any red-headed elf, right hand or not!" 

Fingon sighed. 

"How big is this city? Is there a market place? A big castle? Some place where everybody passes by so I might have a chance to meet him there?"

Doctor Thompson looked at him as if he was a child asking for an extra treat he'd never get. Then she laughed. "You really _are_ from another world. This is the capital of the whole country. There are three million people living in inner London alone. And don't ask me how many markets the city has, apart from the most famous ones. And I strongly doubt you'll find your friend by hanging around Borough Market or Portobello Road!" 

Three million? The sheer number was enough to make Fingon dizzy. How fast did these humans procreate? From what he knew not even the army Morgoth commanded during the Nirnaeth – when the plains of Anfauglith were black with orcs, a seething stinking mass swarming towards the horizon – had counted three million. And this London was just _one_ city in one of the many countries of Men...

"I need help," he said. And then, louder: "I can't do this alone. I have less than twelve hours to find my friend. If I don't, I'll never see him again. Will you help me`"

"I... I don't know if..."

But before the doctor could finish her sentence she froze. There was a loud knock on the door.

 

* * *

 

The man who now entered the room didn't wait for an answer. The door swung open and he walked straight in and towards Fingon's bed.

"Is that the patient?"

Doctor Thompson nodded.

"Hm. You shouldn't have untied him, Miss Thompson. He could be dangerous." 

The newcomer was wearing a similar white coat to Doctor Thompson. He had sandy brown hair, a beard and in front of his eyes he wore two round pieces of glass connected by a metal thread. Back in Valinor in the old days Fëanor, and later his fifth son Curufin, had sometimes used a similar device – a round crystal worn in front of one eye polished carefully to magnify objects the wearer watched through it. It made him able to see the smallest details in the gems he was working on: cracks and splinters so minuscule they remained hidden even to the elven eye. This man, however, was using the eyeglasses to look at larger things – Fingon, for example, who grew increasingly uncomfortable under the glassy stare.

"Did you take the blood tests?" the man with the eyeglasses said without even looking at Doctor Thompson who was standing at the other side of the bed.

Otherwise, he would have noticed how she quickly slipped the writing pad under Fingon's pillow – where it remained hidden out of sight. Especially after Fingon shifted his position so the edge of the pillow and part of his shoulder covered what little remained visible of the pad.

Once the pad with the test result was safely hidden, Doctor Thompson shook her head. "I haven't found the time yet," she said. "But I'm going to do it right away, Doctor Scott!"

She rummaged in the pocket of her white coat and help up a small device – a needle, apparently, wrapped in the same semi-transparent material everything in this city seemed to be made of if it didn't consist of glass or steel.

"You better hurry! Constable Harris told me he'd be back. Not tomorrow, but very soon – together with his Chief Inspector. Apparently, the found a connection with a jewel heist in Islington." 

Fingon shivered. He didn't like the tone of the man's voice. And he could sense the shock and the anger in Doctor Thompson. She opened her mouth, but once again, Doctor Scott interrupted her, before she could even begin to speak. 

"I need a thorough analysis before they take him away. To Scotland Yard or to God-knows-where!" 

He reached out, not caring that his patient was awake now or that he could understand every word he was speaking, grabbed some strands of Fingon's hair and pushed them away so Fingon's left ear was visible. An ear whose pointed shape clearly revealed he was not human.

"I need to know _what he is_ and where he comes from! This might be a medical sensation!"

Doctor Thompson bit her lip. She nodded, but her head barely moved.

Fingon had enough. Enough of being ignored and treated like an exotic animal or a particularly interesting piece of crystal – he was a prince of the house of Fingolfin and a former king of the Noldor! But just as he set out speak out his mind, he caught Doctor's Thompson's eye. " _No_ " she silently begged. " _Don't talk to him_!"

Fingon sighed, kept his mouth shut and tried to ignore the tweaking and pinching as Doctor Scott twisted and pulled his ear. First the one, then the other., apparently testing if they were really part of his body.

"He's awake," he finally announced and let go. "But he can't speak, can he?"

"No," Doctor Thompson lied. "I tried to talk to him, but to no avail. I'm not sure if it's the head trauma or if he really doesn't understand English. Or French, I tried a little of that, too."

"Hm. I'll send someone from Neurology over. We need to run more tests."

He got up and made some notes on a writing pad he pulled from his coat. "Stay here and make sure he doesn't move or does anything stupid. I'll be back before the Chief Inspector arrives! Oh, and don't forget about the blood work – we need to get that done before the fuzz comes and takes him away."

 

* * *

When the door fell shut behind the other doctor, Fingon noticed that all blood had left Doctor Thompson's face.

"You need to get away from here," she said. "As quick as possible!"

"Hell' be back with the constable man, will he? Where will they take me?"

"I'm not sure you understand," she said. "What will happen when the test come through and Dr. Scott realizes you're not human. I can't prevent him much longer from doing the blood work himself. And even worse: what happens once the police finds out what kind of creature you are! It'll be a sensation. The press will be all over it! They'll call you an alien. A superhuman. The government will be involved. And the Americans, I think. You'll end your life in a lab, prodded and probed like an animal – and you'll never see the light of day again. Or your friend – unless they catch him, too."

Fingon shuddered. He thought of Maedhros imprisonment and torture in Thangorodrim – one that had been enough for a whole lifetime, no matter how long. 

"So they want to take me apart to find out, what elves are made of?" As soon as he spoke the words he had to think of Sauron. Morgoth's lieutenant had been chiefly responsible for Maedhros torture – or at least that was what he had gathered from the few bits and pieces Maedhros had told him. " _He liked to ...experiment. He wanted to find out what elves are made of and use that to breed more and stronger orcs_."

Was it just the memories or had the temperature in the room just dropped several degrees? 

Doctor Thompson nodded. "They want to know what you are. As long as they don't know, you count as a threat. You could be a Sowjet spy, some kind of secret super soldier – don't look at me like this, there are people who _believe_ this kind of James Bond stories! And if you're not a Russian agent, they'd want to find out if they can use you for medical research. Your blood is one of a kind, you know? It might provide a cure for cancer, help us postpone the aging process – who knows what's possible? A whole new world!" 

"But you don't want me imprisoned, do you? You don't want these men to experiment on me?"

" _No_! From the very beginning when I saw your clothes, your jewellery, your musical instrument - a harp of some kind? And I _talked_ to you. I know you're an intelligent creature and from what I see you act and feel as human as I am. They can't use you like a monkey or a lab rat!"

"But you are a scholar, a scientist like them. Why don't you want to experiment on me?"

She hesitated. Looked not into his face, but towards the pillow his head was still resting on. To the left, where the writing pad with the information about his non-human blood was hidden.

"I have to admit, I'm tempted. I'm sure, we could use the results to heal a lot of people. To advance medical research by decades. But I can't bear the thought that I'll condemn you to a life in prison if I do this."

She sighed and her face darkened. "A have a brother, who was in prison. He was young and stupid and regretted what he had done. But even the few years he spent there were enough to destroy his life."

Fingon could feel her pain, emanating from her body like dark and and heavy treacle as it dripped towards the floor. He knew she spoke the truth.

"I'll get you out of here," Doctor Thompson said. "You can stay with my sister Stella. She is a musician and lives in Soho – that's the last place in the city they are going to look for you."

She gave him a long look, her eyes trailing over Fingon's braided hair with the golden threads running through the dark strands – and the not very dignified flimsy white-blue gown they had dressed him in after the healers had taken away his clothes.

"You need to get dressed. In clothes that are actually from this century! Wait for me, I'll be back in a minute!"

She hurried towards the door, which quickly closed behind her. All Fingon could do, was to lie still on the bed and hope that he could trust her.


	9. A Way out

 Fingon was just about to look for a means to escape himself when Doctor Thompson returned. She was holding a big bundle of clothes.

"Here. I couldn't find your own clothes; I don't know if they haven't been sent to the lab already. Besides, if you stroll around London looking like an Arthurian knight, Scott and the constable will find you and lock you up faster than you can say 'Lancelot'."

Fingon wanted to ask what kind of knights she was talking about, but when he heard footsteps on the corridor and saw how Doctor Thompson flinched, he changed his mind and shut his mouth.

"You better hurry, we don't have much time before Scott will be asking for more tests. And I don't know when the police will arrive, they might be here at any minute!"

She placed the clothes onto the bed. Fingon identified a pair of suede boots, a heavy dark-green coat with a hood lined with lambskin, a pair of strange-looking blue trousers made from what looked like rough cotton and a black shirt of a cut he had never seen before.

Doctor Thompson politely turned around when Fingon changed out of his flimsy sickbed gown and struggled to squeeze his legs into the pale blue trousers. Apparently, the Men of this world had yet to learn about the comfort of robes and tunics. Thankfully, at least the simple boots Doctor Thompson had brought him fit like they had been made for him – the difference between elven and human feet wasn't that significant after all. As for the shirt – it took him a while until he understood that he had to pull it _over_ his head before he could fit his arms through the short sleeves. The material was soft and stretchy unlike any yarn ever spun in Aman or Beleriand – it looked like the humans had made significant progress since their early days of deer skins and undyed wool.

When he put on the coat, Doctor Thompson told him to put on the hood. "It will hide your ears. And as for your eyes, you better wear this!" 

She held out a contraption similar to the one Doctor Scott had been wearing: two small round glasses joint by thin pieces of metal. However, while Doctor Scott's had been made from clear glass, these glasses were tinted in a light-brown colour. When Fingon put them on, his quality of vision remained the same, but the world appeared drenched in amber like it had been touched by the evening light of a sunny autumn day.

Doctor Thompson giggled. "You look like a hippie! But at least you'll appear human now – as long as people aren't looking too closely."

She quickly grew serious again as she handed him a small bundle of folded-up paper.

"This is a map of central London. I've marked the hospital – you see the red X here? – and the way to Stella's flat. If you're lost just ask people for directions to Old Compton Street. I've written down the address here – can you read it?"

Unfortunately, to someone used to Fëanorian letterings, this form of human letters looked like illegible scribblings. So Doctor Thompson had to explain to him, what the letters that made up the street sign looked like. And she gave a description of the area: "The house is painted dark brown and is right between a sex shop and a record store", she said. "You press the button next to the red door and Stella will let you in. I phoned her, she knows you're coming."

"Won't the people who are after me – the constable man, the other doctor – won't they put two and two together and look for me there? Aren't you the first person they would suspect of helping me? It would only be logical if they went for your family next."

"Don't worry, I'm not that stupid," said Doctor Thompson. "I've already thought about this. This is why you need to knock me out."

"Knock you out? What does this mean?"

"Hit me on the head. Causing enough trauma to render me unconscious if you want the technical terms."

She noticed the concerned look on Fingon's face. "Don't worry, if you hit me right here," she pointed to a spot on the back of her skull, " the chance that you'll cause serious damage is absolutely minimal. Trust me, I'm a doctor!" 

"But I'm not sure I can hit an unarmed woman," Fingon said.

Doctor Thompson sighed. "You really are a knight of the round table, aren't you? It's only practical. It will free me of any suspicion. They'd think you caught me unaware, knocked me out, stole some clothes from the doctors' dressing rooms and fled. They'd think you're lost, wandering the streets and won't suspect you to head straight to Soho with an actual destination ahead, you know? And I won't be arrested or lose my medical license." 

Fingon had to admit it was a decent plan. Better than anything he could have come up with – as lost and confused as he still was in this strange new world.

"Alright," he said. "How do we proceed? Do I have to hit you right here and now?"

Doctor Thompson shook her head. "No. You wait for half a minute – count to thirty, but very slowly – do you know the numbers until thirty? "

Fingon nodded. "We do have numbers – it's just that their names are different in Quenya than in Taliska."

"Okay, whatever that means… As soon as I leave this room you start counting. Once you reach 30 you'll go into the corridor where you'll see me walking with a bunch of notes in my hands. The nurses have just made their rounds so there won't be anyone to disturb us if we act quickly. You knock me down, take the notes and walk away. Don't run, walk. Follow the green signs that say 'Exit' – look, I'm writing it down for you. The letters look like this with a big X in the middle. Once you leave the station you'll meet other people. Just walk past them and pretend everything is normal. If someone asks you who you are and what you're doing here, tell them your name is …um… Finn Johnson and you're visiting your gran who's in room 165. If someone offers you to show you the way to room 165 don't worry – there are two old ladies in there, both in advance states of dementia – just pick one and tell them you're their grandson, but they don't remember you."

"165, dementia. exit" – Fingon clung to these unknown words, all written down on a small sheet of paper Doctor Thompson had pulled from her writing pad and put into his hand. This little piece of paper with its scribbles in blue ink – this was his only hope, his only way towards freedom.

" _Hantalë._ Thank you, Doctor Thompson," he said. "You are saving not only my life with this, but you're also helping me to find my friend – and maybe you're saving him, too!" 

"My name is Catherine," she said and smiled. "And don't thank me until you're safely out of here!"

She didn't wait for him to reply, but briskly walked towards the door. "Let's go! Once the door closes behind me, start counting – and for God's sake, _stick to the plan_!"

 

***

Hitting an innocent woman – previously arranged plan or not – felt as wrong as he had anticipated. Fingon sighed and tried to apply as little pressure as possible as he laid both hands together and hit her from behind – his fists hit the spot on her had with elven precision and Doctor Thompson... _no, Catherine_... collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. 

Fingon bent down, picked up the pad with the medical notes, tore off the top sheets and stuffed them into the pocket of his coat. He took the time to feel for Catherine's pulse before he got up. Ilúvatar be praised, her heart was beating steadily and he could see her chest rising and falling with slow, but steady breaths. She would wake up on her own in a short while – it was time to leave.

It was only when he walked the empty corridor when nervousness hit him.

The big glass door that, according to Catherine, marked the exit of the "station" swung open. Beyond, Fingon was not alone anymore. 

" _Don't run, walk_ " Catherine's words echoed in his head. " _Act like you belong here, like it's the most normal thing in the world_!" 

The corridor seemed to stretch endlessly and the green sign with the human runes that said "Exit" wasn't drawing nearer. Instead, dozens of humans walked through the room. Some were in a hurry, overtaking Fingon on their way towards the exit or the other way around, pushing him aside, eager to reach the entrance to Catherine's station. Others were popping out of the various doors that lined the corridor on the left and right. Some dressed in white like the doctors, some in clothes not different from what Fingon was wearing. Thankfully, none of them was paying Fingon much attention.

When he reached the end of the corridor, he turned to the left like Catherine had told him. He walked down a flight of stairs, through a big glass door and through another corridor. He had almost reached the big two-winged door at the end – a large entrance hall was visible through its glass panels and another "exit" sign fastened to the lintel above – when a young man in white approached him from the side.

"Hello, you look lost, can I help you?"

Fingon's first reaction was to reach for his sword – a sword he hadn't worn in thousands of years.

He flinched, spun around and tried to catch his breath.

He wasn't sure if the man had simply asked out of helpfulness or if this was a trick. " _Human. I must appear human,_ " he thought. _"I must act like I belong here_." He had to stick to Catherine's plan.

"I.... I am looking for my grandmother," he said, hoping his heavily accentuated Taliska wouldn't give him away. "She... she is in room one-hundred-and-sixty-five."

"That's over there," said the young man. "Second door to the right."

"Many thanks," said Fingon, inclining his upper body in a little bow – an instinctive movement that seemed to irritated the man– and walked as quickly as possible to the door that he had been pointed towards. 

" _I belong here. I am looking for my grandmother. My grandmother in room one-hundred-and-sixty-five. My grandmother Johnson_."

 

Thankfully, there were no more doctors behind the door. Instead, room 165's sole inhabitants were two human women, both of them motionless, apparently asleep under white blankets in metal beds.

Fingon closed the door behind him as softly as possible. Once he realized none of the women were conscious enough to pay him any attention, he relaxed a little. Here, he could rest for a while. But not too long, as Catherine would have been discovered by the other doctor's by now. They also would have found out that he was missing from his bed – and had probably already started hunting him.

A few deep breaths – the air smelt stale. And next to the omnipresent scent of soot and chemicals the room was filled with the odour of decay humans seemed to emanate more strongly the older they got. A look on the map Catherine had given him and Fingon was good to go. He held his ear against the door: No footsteps on the corridor, he was safe for now.

He was just about to open the door when he heard a noise from the bed to his left. The old woman inside coughed – then she reached out with a hand that resembled a claw more than human fingers.

By human standards, she must be ancient. Her face and what little was visible of her skin under the covers was lined and wrinkled like a dried plum. Her hair was little more than a few white strands that stuck to the crown of her head, stubborn like seaweeds that clung to a rock in the middle of a tidal wave. There were tubes going into her arm and a human device with blinking lights and shiny buttons standing next to her bed which seemed to be connected to her body by wires and more tubes.

The old woman opened her eyes. She was staring directly at Fingon, but her irises were milky and Fingon was not sure how much she was still able to see. Pity stung his heart. They wilted so quickly, these humans! One day they were as beautiful as any of the Eldar, but within the blink of an eye, they turned into ...this.

Even this old crone might have been a beauty in her youth, a bright and powerful woman, a mother, an artisan or an artist. Now that her _fëa_ was close to leaving her body, the Gift of Man – not to be bound to the confines of Arda Marred – didn't seem like a gift at all.

"Jamie, is that you?" the old woman croaked. Once again she reached out into Fingon's direction.

"Jamie?" Her fingers opened and closed, fumbling blindly into thin air.

He had no idea how this Jamie was and he definitively should leave now. With every passing moment the risk of being discovered grew.

But the old woman seemed so lonely. How long had it been since she talked to someone? Was she waiting for her son? Her grandchildren? A family that never came? Who had forgotten her here, stuck to the bed in the hospital house, tied to strange machinery? Fingon couldn't bring himself to just leave her like that

So he walked towards her bed and took her hand. Her skin was cool and of almost papery texture and when he touched her, he felt her _fëa_ fluttering, like it was only hanging to her body by threads. 

"Jamie?" her voice was not much more than a whisper. She wanted to say more, but when she opened her mouth again, she started to break into a violent cough.

"Shhh!" Fingon petted her hand, trying to calm her down. "It's alright, you're not alone. You're not alone here"

He had never been with a mortal person who was that close to death. Yes, he had fought alongside Men during the Nirnaeth and watched them die by the thousands. But back then he had been filled with the furor of battle and busy enough with keeping himself and his troops alive – if only with moderate success. He hadn't paid attention to those who lay dying, be it elves or Men.

Now he was sitting on the edge of the bed holding a dying woman's hand. The odour of sickness, clung to his nose, he witnessed every cruel detail of her decaying body – and only now he really understood why humans lived so fast, why they were so eager to explore, to invent, to fit every possible experience into the span of the few decades that were given to them. 

He understood, why the world had changed into this strange loud city, where everything seemed to be in motion and longlasting things like trees and rocks and grass had been replaced with glass and steel and all these new materials he had no names for. The humans had _so little time_. They were simply unable to hold still and look back and reflect on what they had done.

He looked at the woman – her coughing had ceased, but her breath was still going irregular. He hated the thought that the last thing she was going to experience on this earth would be the stink and the bland white walls of this room.

"I will try to show you a little beauty at least", he said more to himself than to her. Then he started to hum, searching for the right tone. It had been many years since he last sang a song like this and without his harp it was much more difficult.

But then he found his voice and he softly sung to her of the Trees of Valinor – of Telperion's dark leaves and silver dew and of Laurelin's golden fruits. Of the green grass that grew on the hill Ezellohar when the world was still young. Of the merging of the golden and silver light and how it had been the most beautiful thing that had ever existed in the history of Arda. It was a variation of the song he had sung to Maedhros on the crests of Thangorodrim and still the piece of music that was closest to his heart. 

The old woman's breath grew calmer. Fingon felt her pulse through her fingers, slow and steady. She was falling asleep. There were tears trickling from underneath her closed eyelids, but her wrinkly lips had curved into a smile. 

Carefully, Fingon let go of her fingers. He took the time to place her hand on the bedspread, then he arranged both her hands so there were folded on her chest like he had seen it on the monuments and gravestones the Men of Beleriand built for their dead ancestors. The woman was sleeping now, peacefully, but her _fëa_ was coming loose, one thread after the other. He wasn't sure she would wake up again. 

"N _amárië_ ," he whispered as he tiptoed towards the door, careful not to disturb her sleep.

He was able to walk along to corridor and reached the door that led to the big entrance hall without encountering further humans. And nobody bothered him when he walked across the busy entrance hall towards the big door with the sign that said "Exit".

 

But underneath the tinted glasses, Catherine had given him, his cheeks were wet when he finally stepped out of the hospital and into the noise of the London streets.

 

[tbc]


	10. The Sounds of Soho

The city hit him like a punch in the gut. The noise, the overwhelming smell, the speed and the _motion_ of everything. Had it been a deserted wasteland of glass and stone at midnight, now that noon had come and gone, everything in London had become loud and bright and _fast_. Even for Fingon's elven senses is was hard to grasp the scene in its entirety.

Sticking to the map was his best option. Or rather: the line Catherine had drawn, which led from the red X of the hospital towards the street where her sister lived. So he tried to ignore the strangeness of his surroundings and walked on.

He quickly realized two things: Firstly: That the roaring demon devices – like the one that had hit him last night – where actually carriages _with people sitting inside and steering them_. He had no idea how they managed to make them move without horses, but that was the kind problem Finrod or Curufin would had been interested in solving. Fingon had no time for technical intricacies.

Secondly: How incredibly _big_ this city was. He had never seen so many people together outside of a battlefield. They were driving the carriages that squeezed through the narrow streets, they inhabited the giant houses that towered to the left and right and they jostled along the narrow pavements. They were always in a hurry, most of them not even looking up when they made their way around Fingon or another one of the slower passers-by.

The sheer size of the city and indifference of the crowd had one advantage: No one cared to give Fingon a second look. However, he had realized by now that he would never be able to find Maedhros within this termite mound of a city. Not without help.

Nevertheless, he walked on. What else was he supposed to do? At least he had a destination – although he still wasn't sure how Catherine's sister could help him with a seemingly impossible task.

He caught himself scanning the passers-by for a tall, read-headed figure – to no avail. There was a surprisingly high number of humans who shared the bright red hair colour of the eldest and youngest sons of Nerdanel, but none of them sported even remotely elven features.

Catherine's map, however, proved to be very useful. When Fingon reached a big square with a tall column, surrounded by fountains and four big bronze lions, he knew he was headed in the right direction. He ignored the columned building on the front end of the square as well as the statue that crowned the column – some human king of general with a big hat – and headed north into one of the smaller streets that entered the square.

 

The scenery changed quickly. The stately buildings with their columns, domes and turrets gave way to narrow streets and dirty brick facades. There were shops and colourful signs, some of them bright and glowing from within, garish stripes of pink and yellow against the grey afternoon light. Fingon was unable to decipher the letters, but he could tell they were advertising seedy business: Cheap food, badly-made clothes in lurid colours – and the services of the naked women whose pictures were prominently displayed in many of the windows. 

Fingon averted his eyes and walked faster. By now, it didn't take long until he reached his goal: a narrow house with the dark brown facade. To the right there was another one of the shops with neon lights and pictures of scantily-clad human women in the windows. The shop to the right sold musical instruments and strange discs made from shiny black material – apparently some kind of device musicians used, but their true nature remained a mystery. On the other side of the street was another brothel. Fingon wondered how a respectable woman like Catherine had a sister who lived in a place like this – but beggars couldn't be choosers. He took a deep breath and pressed the button next to the door.

Above the noise from the streets he could hear the faint ring of a bell. No reaction. After a while, he pressed the button again, wondering what intricate human technology lay behind it.

It took until the third ring that he heard the sound of footsteps. Finally, the door opened and revealed a narrow dark staircase – and a woman with dark skin and wild hair staring at him with raised eyebrows.

"So you are the alien hippie, Cat told me about!" she said instead of a greeting.

"Are... are you Stella?" Fingon asked, flabbergasted. "You... you don't look like your sister."

Catherine had pale reddish-blond hair and blue eyes. This woman's brown skin and black hair resembled the people of Bór who had fought along with Maedhros' army during the Nirnaeth. How on Yavanna's green earth could they be sisters?

Stella must have noticed his irritation. "Yes I know," she said in the voice of someone who had to explain the same facts over and over again. "We don't look like siblings. Different dad, you know? But Catherine Thompson is my sister and she'd be _very_ disappointed in you if you'd start to doubt her now." 

She gave him a long look and continued before Fingon was able to form a reply. "And who are you exactly? Cat told me some wild story on the phone – people at the hospital who want to lock you away for medical experiments. But I'm not sure what to believe here."

Fingon cast a nervous glance over his shoulder. "My name is Fingon, Findekáno of the house of Fingolfin – and I'd rather like to go inside before we continue talking..."

 

* * *

He followed Stella inside, where they ascended first one then another flight of stairs and finally found themselves in a small flat squeezed directly under the roof: just two rooms and a kitchen. Fingon who was used to the splendorous palaces and spacy townhouses of Tirion briefly wondered how humans were able to live in such tight confinements. Then he remembered the density of the city's populations. All these humans in the streets had to live _somewhere_ – it wasn't surprising that their dwellings looked cramped and narrow like that. 

After she had closed the door behind them, Stella crossed her arms in front of her chest and gave Fingon another sceptical look. "I guess it's time you give me a bloody good reason to believe your story. For all I knew you could have blackmailed Cat into calling me and I'm making the biggest mistake of my life, taking you in."

Fingon shook his head. "You're not making a mistake – at least I hope very much that my visit will cause you no harm. Instead, I'm incredibly thankful to you and your sister. You're my only hope, finding my way through this city. London is very big and your world is very strange to me."

"So Cat is right, you really think you're not from this world? Okay… Martian, what kind of reason can you give me to believe this kind of nonsense?" 

Instead of an answer, Fingon pulled down the hood of his furry coat. Then he took off the tinted glasses and looked Stella straight in the eye.

For a long while she said nothing.

When Catherine had taken care of Fingon after he had been brought in from the streets, unconscious after a bad hit on the head, he had been hurt and confused and far from being in command of his powers. By now, however, he had recovered and was fully awake. When he looked at Stella, it was with the eyes of someone who had seen the trees of Valinor in full bloom, who had crossed the Helcaraxë and fought balrogs and watched millennia come and go. When he finally lowered his gaze, Stella shivered,

"Jesus! You... you're really not human?"

"I never said I was."

"I... I think I have to sit down for a little. You... you won't hurt me, will you?"

Now Fingon felt pity for her. Stella had taken him in and was not unwilling to help – and she was Catherine's sister after all. Catherine had been nothing but kind to him.

"I am sorry," he said, "I didn't mean to scare you. It was just the easiest way to show you who I really am. I truly come from another world. I am an Eldar from Valinor, I think you would call our people 'elves'. At least this is the word your sister used. I'm here to find my friend and I have only very little time left before the doorway that sends me back home is closing. Did you happen to see him or do you know where I might find him? His name is Maedhros, but he might also go by Nelyafinwë or his mother-name Maitimo. He is quite the bit taller than I am and has red hair – and his right hand might be missing." 

"And... he's also one of your people? What you call an elf?

"Yes, he is. We... we've been ...friends for a very long time. It wasn't always easy, there was a quarrel between our families. But we stuck together and even helped to bring peace, at least for a while. But it all ended when we lost a big battle – and… and I haven't seen him since."

"And that was how long ago?"

Fingon shrugged. "A few thousand years?" 

"A few _thousand_ years? Come on, elf or not, you're insane!"

"You recognized I'm not human. Why should I lie to you? I was born long before your time, many years before the sun and the moon. I fought the Black Foe in five battles, I repented my sins in the Halls of Mandos for many many years – and it's only now that I'm running out of time."

"Half of what you just said sounds like complete gibberish to me," Stella said. "But my sister sent you… and I still owe her a favour for setting me up with this bloke who got me my record contract. I'm a singer, you know? – So I guess I should at least make you tea before I decide what to do with you."

A singer? Fingon smiled and wished he still had his harp.

"I'm a bit of a musician myself," he said. "But I'm afraid my singing voice is rather rusty these days. And I was never as good as my cousin Finrod. Or Maglor, my friend Maedhros' younger brother – he had a voice that could make mountains tremble and let rivers run in reverse."

"I do jazz," Stella said – Fingon had no idea what that meant. "Although they want me to move more in a pop direction now that I have the record contract. Well, we'll see. So why don't you sit down for a while, Mr. Fin... what should I call you again?"

"Fingon, that's the name under which I was known among Men."

"Fingon, then. Just sit down, I'll fix us some tea. Do you want to watch telly until then?"

Fingon took a seat on the sofa that didn't look much different than the ones he had in his house back in Tirion – except that the covers were yellow, rather threadbare and made from an unknown scratchy fabric. 

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid that sentence was as cryptic to me as me talking about the Halls of Mandos must have been to you," he said. "What in Ilúvatar's name is a 'teli'?"

Stella laughed. "A television. You don't have them in elvenland? It's a device that allows us to see things that happen very far away. You can watch the moon landing. Or someone reading the news. Or people acting in a movie or a television show."

"Oh, like a palantír! A great craftsman of my people once made stones that let you see things that happen in faraway lands. But you can also use them to see into the distant past and sometimes even the far future."

Stella raised her eyebrows. "Sounds rather technologically advanced your magic stones, but yes, I think it's the same principle. So you're okay with 'Top of the Pops' while I'm making us some tea? It's a show about music, I guess that's quite the universal thing."

"Music sounds good" said Fingon.

He watched Stella walk across the room and turn a switch on a wooden box in the corner. With a buzzing sound the glass plate at the front of the box lit up. Shapes began to appear on the surface, quickly turning into human figures. 

Fascinated, Fingon watched the little humans on the glass screen as they moved about in a brightly lit room full of sparkly decorations, discussing something called "charts" – a mysterious word that apparently described a very important list with names, Fingon was unable to read. Still, the whole display was much more advanced than any of the blurry images Fëanor's palantíri were able to conjure. It was like watching a stage play – acted out by figures not bigger than his finger. 

He was so focussed he hadn't realized Stella had left the room and returned with two steaming mugs of tea.

"I wasn't sure how much milk you're taking," she said. 

Palantíri machines and tea with milk? Humans were full of the strangest surprises. Out of politeness, however, Fingon nodded and took a sip of tea. It didn't taste like the herbal beverage he knew from Beleriand, nor like the sweet tea leaves that grew on the fields of Aman – but it wasn't as bad as he had expected. He could even handle the milk. 

"Thank you," he said. "It's very ...nourishing."

Stella smiled and sat down on the armchair next to the sofa. She took a look at the television machine and smiled. "Oh, look, who's coming up next! Matt MacLaren is his name – a Scottish folk singer who's now doing some kind of glam rock thing. He's brilliant! I've never heard that kind of voice before!"

Fingon had been wanting to talk about more pressing matters: how to find Maedhros, for example, with less than half a day left in this world. But Stella's enthusiasm was endearing. And he couldn't deny that he was still fascinated by the television and more than curious to listen to human music. He wondered how much different it sounded now – millennia after Finrod Felagund had first taught Bëor the Old and his kin the songs of Eldamar.

Nothing could have prepared him for what happend next.

 

"And now, Matt MacLaren with his newest hit single 'A Star at Sea'," one of the humans in the television announced. For a second the screen grew dark. Then the lights went on, a curtain parted and a tall, black-haired figure walked onto the stage.

Fingon recognized him instantly, even if he hadn't seen him since the days of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

A face, so similar to his older brother, but softer, with sadder eyes in the same light grey  colour as his father's. And although he had done _something_ to his ears, and wore human clothes – black leather trousers and a flowy shirt patterned with swirls of red and yellow and a plethora of other colours –, he was instantly recognizable as one of the Eldar. 

'MacLaren', no surprise the name sounded vaguely familiar. It derivated from Makalaurë, of course. Makalaurë –  'the one who forges gold' – by his skill with the harp and the power of his voice. In Sindarin, this name translated to Maglor. Maglor, second son of Fëanor and younger brother to Maedhros, who had thrown his Silmaril into the sea after the War of Wrath and hadn't been seen ever since.

Now everything made sense: why Maedhros had sailed the sea and come to the world of the mortals after his release from Mandos. Of course, he was looking for his brother. And that meant, Fingon finally knew where to find him.


	11. To The Rainbow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fingon rides the tube and finally discovers the word plastic. Oh, and Maglor plays the Rainbow.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Thanks to everyone who read and commented <3 I'm sorry it took me so long with the next chapter, but work and the flu got in the way.

"I... I know this man," Fingon finally managed to say. Still, his eyes were glued to the screen where Maglor was now beginning to sing.

His voice hadn't lost any of its beauty, although Fingon could tell, he wasn't using the full extent of his vocal range. He was also singing in the human tongue, this weird bastardized version of Taliska, rough and uncultured when compared to the intricate cadences of his native Quenya.

"Hey? Hey, Fingon!?" 

Apparently, Stella had already asked several times, but her voice was only getting through to him, after Maglor was already halfway through his song.

"You were miles away! You said you knew Matt MacLaren? Are you sure?"

Finally, Fingon tore his eyes away from the television and turned to face his newfound ally.

"His name is Maglor of the house of Fëanor and he is one of the Eldar like me. He's my friend's brother."

"He's an _elf_?"

Fingon nodded. "He is disguising himself well, but I've known him for hundreds of years. I spent a lot of time with his family when I was young – he was already a great singer then. And later on... we fought together in many battles."

He put his half-finished mug of tea down and stood up. "Where do I find him? I need to talk to him! Once I've spoken to him, I'm sure I'll find Maedhros as well."

Could it be possible? Could it be so easy? His heart and all his instincts told him, it was Maglor Maedhros had been looking for in the Hither Lands. A tiny part, deep within him, however, squirmed in jealously.

_Why didn't he stay in Aman? Why didn't he at least talk to me before he sailed into the east? He must have known that I came for him, year after year. That I pleaded with Mandos just to see him one more time._

The other, more rational part of him, the one who had heard the stories of what happened after the Nirnaeth (and longed to suppress all these terrible revelations) knew better: It was the Oath that bound Maedhros and Maglor together, that made them chose each other over all the friends …and lovers in Arda and beyond. It had been the Oath, always the Oath. The Oath that had led them to the slaughter in Doriath, to the havens of Sirion and beyond.

The Oath... was it still alive? Maedhros had repented his sins in the halls of Mandos, but Maglor?

He recalled Mandos words, spoken on that terrible night in Araman. Even after all these centuries they still burned within him – a scar from a wound that had never really healed.

" _On the House of Fëanor the wrath of the Valar lieth from the West unto the uttermost East, and upon all that will follow them it shall be laid also. Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue. To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass. The Dispossessed shall they be for ever."_

He shivered and almost didn't notice that Stella was once again speaking to him. 

"Hey, hey Fingon?"

"Yes?"

"Look! I've found out where MacLaren... I mean your Maglor bloke – I've found out where he is playing next!"

She waved a sheet of paper in front of him, curiously covered in tiny print and black and white pictures of humans with what looked like musical instruments. 

"You're incredibly lucky, you know? He's playing at the Rainbow Theatre tonight. I've just looked it up in 'Melody Maker'."

"What... what does that mean?"

"He's playing a concert; don't you know what that is? Performing. In front of an audience. Tonight - in East London!"

It slowly dawned on Fingon. "Tonight? Before my time runs out? That's great news!" But wait... how, how do I get to this Rainbow place in Finsbury Park? By carriage? Or can you draw me a map and I'll just walk?"

Stella shook her head. "You can't just walk all the way, it's over four miles. It'll take you hours! You'd better take the tube. It's half an hour on the Piccadilly line." 

"What's a tube?"

"Oh dear..." She shook her head and laughed. "You know what? I'd better come with you. Make sure, you won't get lost or mugged by those hospital guys."

"I'm incredibly grateful," said Fingon. "But why exactly are you helping me? Your sister saved me at the hospital, you took me in – you don't have to do all that!" 

"My sister has helper syndrome. Trying to make up for our brother I guess. Did she mention him to you?" 

Fingon nodded. "I think so. She said he was in prison?"

"Paul has been locked up for two years now. Drug dealing, several forms of assault. She couldn't save him. And now she's trying to save everybody else. As for me?" Stella laughed. "I'm in it for the money. And the fame. You know Matt MacLaren – Maglor – whatever his name is. He's a bloody big star around these parts, you know? And I'm a struggling musician, I'll take every chance for a bit of that kind of fame to rub off on me!" 

"A star?"

"Just a figure of speaking. A very famous musician, you know?" 

Fingon nodded slowly. "I wasn't sure what you meant. A ... distant nephew of mine turned into a star once. An actual star that shines in the night. Or so I've heard, I never met him. But I see the new bright new star on the horizon every evening. And it hasn't been there when I was young."

"Please don't tell me you take that literally?"

"Well, I didn't know Eärendil in person, he was my brother Turgon's grandson and..."

Stella shook her head. "I don't think I'm ready for stories like this! You know what? I'll grab my coat. Let's get to the Rainbow and hope there are some tickets left!"

 

* * *

Fingon hadn't put much thought into it when Stella mentioned the 'tube'. Once he was sitting inside this abhorrent device, however, he wished he had asked her beforehand about the nature of this strangely-named means of transportation. He might have been alright with the self-driven carriages – by now he had seen enough of them to get slightly more used to their presence – but nothing had prepared him for traveling within this kind of clattering, screeching and smelling metal dragon that squeezed its ways through narrow tunnels dozens of meters beneath the surface of the earth.

It was like being stuck in the guts of the Great Worm of Angband – together with hundreds of indifferent humans with didn't seem to find anything odd in traveling within this metal monstrosity.

"It's just a half hour ride," Stella had said. For Fingon it stretched into an eternity.

Truly, Arda was marred by Morgoth's touch if it had ordinary humans cooking up inventions like this! 

The smell of petrol, oil and human sweat still clung to Fingon's nose when they finally ascended towards the surface. After a short walk they arrived at their destination: A big building on a street corner with throngs of young humans already queueing in front of the entrance. The sky had darkened and the sun was barely a sliver of light on the western horizon. Fingon wondered, if Eärendil's star also rose here, in this world of smoke and steel – so far, the sky was too cloudy to see.

With growing unease, he thought about the boat on the river – many miles and another tube-ride away. There were precious little hours left until he had to get back.

Stella seemed worried, too. "We're too late," she said. "We'll never get tickets at the door with so many people already waiting!"

"Tickets? You mean we can't see Maglor play here?"

Stella sighed. "I keep forgetting how naive you are... You have to pay to see a famous musician like your friend here! I was hoping we might be early enough for some last-minute tickets, but I've been underestimating how _big_ he's gotten. Look, the girls are queueing around the street corner and some of them are still holding 'tickets wanted' signs!" 

Fingon shrugged. "I'm not sure I understand that system. Where I come from, music is for everyone. Maglor used to play on the main square in Tirion and everybody who liked to could come and listen. And on high feast days he played in Valmar. His voice was so beautiful even the Valar came down from their thrones and palaces to listen to his songs."

"Well, I didn't know, elves were socialists," said Stella. "But I'm afraid this isn't getting us anywhere here."

Fingon threw a sceptical glance towards the crowd in front of the theatre's doors. "The world has moved on in many ways beyond my understanding... But couldn't we just tell the guardians at the door that we know Maglor and have to speak to him? I see no reason why he wouldn't want to talk to me. There were ugly things happening between the sons of Fëanor and my family after... after I was gone, yes. But the last time I saw Maglor it was in preparing for a battle where we both fought side by side."

Stella sighed again. "I'm not sure that works. Jesus, I wish we had something like press passes – a _nythin_ g – to make us look official!"

"Hm. You're a musician, too. Can't you just tell them you're here on ... music business?"

She laughed, but not in a happy way. "I'm a jazz singer from Soho. And just in case you're eyes work differently than humans' do – have you looked at me?" She waved her hand in front of Fingon's face. "I've been called a 'bloody immigrant' and worse things often enough – they won't let a brown girl in without a press pass or anything!"

Fingon knitted his brow. After the initial surprise he hadn't paid much attention to Stella's appearance – after all, he had seen humans in various shapes and colours on the streets of London.

"I... I didn't know that was a problem," he said.

"I'm glad your world is different, elven-boy," Stella said. "But I'll spare you the history lesson for another time. We still don't have a solution to our problem."

Fingon was not a strategist. Back in the day he had left the elaborate planning to his father – and later to Maedhros. He was much better at actually _doing_ things than thinking about them. Fighting orcs and balrogs and dragons, riding head first into Thangorodrim – he preferred to make his decisions as he went along. As he did now.

"There must be another way in," he said. "Somewhere in the back. Let's try this one!"

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Stella asked.

"No. But I don't have a better one."

With that, Fingon crossed the street – this time, thankfully, without being run over by a carriage – walked pass the crowd in front of the entrance and towards the spot where the theatre joined the next building in the block.

Stella swore under her breath, but she was still following him.

"You don't have to do that," Fingon said. "If it's uncomfortable or even dangerous for you, you don't need to come with me." 

He turned around to see Stella hesitate, but only for a second. Then she shook her head, her dark curls flowing. "I'll be damned if I quit now that it's getting interesting," she said and laughed. "I want to meet that fabulous Maglor chap – it might be a story I can tell my grandchildren. One day... if I manage not to get arrested."

"I promise, I'll do everything in my power to keep you safe," Fingon said.

He realized he liked this. This feeling of excitement, he had thought long forgotten. A faithful companion by his side, a seemingly impossible task in front of him – his heart was beating faster and not just, because the thought of seeing Maedhros again made him nervous. It was the exhilarating feeling of _adventure_ pumping through his veins. A feeling he had rarely experienced during all those peaceful years in Aman. 

"Look, do you see the door over there?" Stella had spotted it first. She pointed towards an inconspicuous looking doorway at the side of the building. A tall, broad-shouldered man in a dark suit was guarding it. He was wearing tinted glasses not unlike the ones Fingon still had on his nose.

"That's a backstage entrance if I ever saw one," said Stella. "Unfortunately that bouncer doesn't look like the kind of guy who could take a joke."

As they approached the door, the black-clad guardian tensed.

"Oi, what are you doing here?" he barked. "You can't go in here!" 

Fingon opened his mouth to reply, but before he could work his tongue around the first Taliska word. Stella elbowed him unceremoniously in the side.

"We have a delivery for Mr. MacLaren," she said. "It's urgent!"

The guard shook his head. "Bollocks! The post has come through in the morning. Now show me your backstage pass or piss off!"

"Wait a sec, I have the pass in my bag," Stella said and began to rummage in the big suede purse she was carrying. 

Fingon knew this was his chance. Using the moment during which the guard wasn't paying attention he sneaked up to his left side, reached up and clamped his fingers down on the pulse point in the man's neck. Mortals were so much frailer than elves in many regards.

"Hey! What are ya..." the man yelled, but he didn't get to finished his sentence. Fingon pressed down a second time, hooked his foot around the man's calf and down he sank like a freshly logged tree.

"What kind of Mr. Spock trick was -that-?" Stella hissed, but Fingon didn't leave her time to reply. He bent down and pressed his palms against the guard's temples. It had been a long while since he'd done this and he had never been as good with songs and words of power as Maglor or his cousin Finrod had been. Closing his eyes, he focussed as much of his mental energy as he could and hummed the word "enyalië" to a simple melody. Something _moved_ within the unconscious man's mind. Crude and clumsily executed, but it should be enough.

"Let's go!" He grabbed Stella by the hand and quickly pulled her through the door, closing it behind them.

"What about the bouncer, will he...?"

"No. He won't remember anything about the last hour once he wakes up. He'll think he simply fell asleep during guard duty."

"Holy mother of god! You can do _magic_!"

"Depends what you mean by 'magic'. I'm not a wizard nor a sorcerer, but I know a few words of power." 

They were now standing in a darkened corridor devoid of people.

"Your magic words – can they show me where the light switch is?" 

"Whatever that is – no. But elven eyes work better in the dark. There are two doors in front of us. On to the right and one to the left. Both have signs on them, which I can't read."

"The light switch is always next to the door. A small plastic thing, around stomach-height."

"What's plastic?" 

"The stuff everything's made of these days."

"Like this?" 

The light went on and revealed the details of the unspectacular corridor to Stella. In addition, Fingon had learned a new word. 'Plastic'. He slid his fingers across the smooth, but slightly greasy surface of the light switch. The humans had come a long way since their days of bronze, furs and wrought-iron. He just wasn't sure if they had moved into the right direction.

"The door on the left says 'auditorium", the one on the right says 'backstage'. If you want to meet your friend MacLa... Maglor, he'll be behind that one."

"And the other one is for the audience?" 

Stella nodded.

"I want to listen to him sing first. Just for a little while. And look for Maedhros in the audience. He might be hiding somewhere between the spectators." 

Stella shrugged. "If you say so. I don't mind a free concert experience."

 


	12. Maglor's song

Inside the auditorium it was dark. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of young humans were sitting and standing tightly packed. Expectant tension hung in the air, so thick, Fingon felt it like a physical entity: a warm, buzzing cloud that spread between the audience members' heads and hands and ears, connecting the individuals, transforming them into one single big pulsating mass.

"We're lucky," whispered Stella. "I think we missed the opening act. Maglor's show will start in a second."

In addition to the throbbing energy from the audience, Fingon felt his own pulse beating high within his throat. He scanned the dark auditorium for a familiar red-headed figure – so far, in vain.

"Let's get closer to the front," he whispered. He took Stella by the hand and they bee-lined their way through the waiting humans until it wasn't possible to get any closer to the stage. The many young men and women had left their plush-covered seats and were standing so tightly packed that they formed a living wall, engulfing the stage with its castle-like setup in a tight semi-circle. Only a metal grid and a row of serious-looking men in dark suits separated them from the elevated stage.

A bell chimed.

The nervous whisper in the audience ceased abruptly as if someone had disabled it with a plastic light switch.

Music rung out from behind the red curtain that hid the stage. A vibrating wailing sound that spiralled into a mechanical scream, like a distorted seagull – an 'electric guitar' – as Stella explained over the increasing noise. 

The curtains flew aside and there was light. Blazing lamps shining in all colours of the rainbow and flashing like lightning during athunderstorm over the Ered Lómin. Something _exploded_ and suddenly, thousands of tiny sparkling objects flew through the air. The audience jumped and laughed, hundreds of hands reaching out towards the stage.

The stage. In the middle of all this, Maglor had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.

He was surrounded by three humans with musical instruments: two with electric guitars and one in the back with something that looked like all the kinds of drums that existed within Arda had been conjoined into one construction, held together by various bits and pieces of metal. 

The electric guitar screeched as Maglor walked towards the edge of the stage. He seemed taller than Fingon remembered him. Up close he noticed that Maglor's once smooth, alabaster skin was lined with old scars. His ears, visible under the silken band that held back his hair were scarred and cut at the tips and pierced by gold rings at the bottom. There were silver streaks in his once jet-black hair.

But his eyes were the same as they had been millennia ago. Fëanorian eyes, grey like the sea on a stormy day. Maedhros' eyes.

And his voice had remained the same, too.

"Good evening, London," he said, his Quenya accent barely audible, and the crowd went mute within an instant. Maglor chuckled. "It's nice to be back."

He was making small-talk they thought, but in reality, he was using words of power. Fingon felt it, how he tapped into the energy that turned the audience from a hundreds or thousands individual souls into one big, breathless organism who was eating every syllable from the palm of Maglor's hand. 

He hadn't sung a single line, and they were already in a frenzy.

"Tonight, I'd like to honour a special friend of mine," he continued. "It's not his birthday or anything, but I'd like to play one of his songs."

The audience cheered, but only, because he let them.

One of the musician pushed a new instrument on stage, something that looked like the stripped-down version of a piano or a cembalo, made from black plastic.

The musician sat down and played a few notes – beautiful little piano tones that hung in the air like silver dewdrops on Telperion's leaves.

Maglor began to sing:

 

" _It's a God-awful small affair/_

_To the girl with the mousy hair..."_

 

"Oh my god, he's doing Bowie!" Stella gasped.

 

" _Now she walks through her sunken dream/_

_To the seat with the clearest view/_

_And she's hooked to the silver screen..."_

 

His voice soared through the auditorium as the song continued, a nightingale transforming into an eagle: 

" _Take a look at the lawman/_

_Beating up the wrong guy/_

_Oh man, wonder if he'll ever know/_

_He's in the best-selling show/_

_Is there life on Mars?"_

The song ended with an ecstasy Fingon had never witnessed in any kind of audience, ever. The humans were not only singing along, some of them were openly sobbing as they did so. Some were just screaming as they stretched their hands towards Maglor's figure on the stage as if they wanted to grab every note and held it tight for eternity. 

"Thank you! And _hantalë_ , Mr. Bowie!" Maglor said. The audience went crazy once again and for some long moments, Maglor simply stood in the middle of the stage, soaking up the admiration and applause. 

Fingon was surprised. Yes, back in the day, Maglor had been a prince and one of the proud sons of Fëanor. But when it came to his music, he had always been very humble. He had played for big audiences in Tirion and Valmar, because people wanted to hear him sing not because he was keen on the publicity. Thousands of years walking the Hither Lands, however, seemed to have led to a change of character.

But as Fingon watched his cousin as a breathed in the cheering and the spotlight and the boundless _energy_ his young human admirers gave so freely, he felt like he began to understand. Maybe this was it what kept Maglor alive? What made him survive the endless years of exile, alone among mortals?

The next song followed – "A Star at Sea", the one they had seen on the television earlier today. 

The crowed _roared_ as they recognized the familiar tune. The ate up the next song as well: a slow ballad about flowers and trees and young love.

_"Just a few songs"_ Fingon had told himself in the beginning. " _Then I'm going to look for Maedhros. Not just here in the audience, but everywhere else, too."_ After all, he could be hiding in the dark corners of the auditorium – or behind the stage, patiently waiting for Maglor to finish his set.

But putting these plans into operation was easier said than done. He was standing in the middle of an enthusiastic crowd – and had fallen under the spell of Maglor's voice, almost as easily as his mortal listeners had.

 

After a while he had forgotten how far the evening had progressed. The notes, the words Maglor was singing were manipulating time, making it stretch endlessly and simultaneously go by at lightning-speed.  Fingon had no idea, how much time had passed or how many songs had been played, when Maglor spoke again.

"As for my next song: I'll be playing something very old," he said. "One of my first works, if you want to say so. It's part of a very long song, which I can't play in its entirety and it's called: 'The Burning Ships'."

His musicians strummed their guitars. The chords that emanated from their sleek electric instruments were the piercing wails of the age of plastic – but they formed a melody, Fingon knew by heart. He had heard it played on harps and lyres, back in Maedhros' stronghold in Himring. It had also been played at his own court in Hithlum. 

This was the _Noldolantë_ , 'The Fall of the Noldor', the lament Maglor had composed after the kinslaying at Alqualondë. He was playing a modified version now, with lyrics in modern Taliska, but the song itself remained the same.

Fingon swallowed hard. All those humans around him, who clapped and waved their hands, who had no idea what they were singing along to.

_The cries of the dying Teleri, the blood, shockingly red on the white planks of the swan-ships..._

"What is it?" asked Stella. "Don't you like that song? I think it's beautiful!" 

Fingon looked at her through what he only realized now were tear-filled eyes. "This is a very old song," he said. "About terrible events many years ago. And I was there. I took part in the battle for the ships. It was not a glorious one." 

Instead of an answer, he felt Stella's warm hand on his arm. After a long pause she said: "I really have no idea about your people's history and politics. And most of the names and events you're telling me about sound like someone tries to beat me about the head with a book of Arthurian fairytales. But... don't you think that things, that happened so long ago that people are writing songs about them are old enough so you can let them go? I mean, your friend there up on stage seems to think so – why else would be play them to us? It's not like there's anybody else who would understand their true meaning."

She gestures to the front of the stage, where the human admires were still waving and singing along. "Well, maybe except for this guy over there. Do you see him?"

Stella pointed to the far left, right near the edge of the stage. There stood a tall figure, apparently utterly transfixed. While everybody around them was singing and moving along to the rhythm of the music they stood motionless, solid as a rock that was engulfed by surges of waves.

"Didn't you say that your lost friend has red hair?" 

Fingon froze. He rubbed his eyes. Looked again.

The stranger towered above the other members of the audience, he was at least half a head taller than the other humans. His hair was short, but it shone copper-red in the spotlights that emanated from the stage. He was wearing some kind of scarf around his head that hid his ears, but when he turned his head his profile revealed that he was anything but human.

Fingon would have recognized him in the middle of an army of millions.

His heart clenched and he felt dizzy, close to fainting. Up on stage Maglor's voice rose up into the last climactic lines of his strange new adaptation of the _Noldolantë_. 

There he was. only a few dozen feet in front of him. Maedhros, of the house of Fëanor. Nelyafinwë Maitimo. After all these years Fingon had finally found him.


	13. Maitimo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fingon goes crowdsurfing.

 The problem, however, was how to reach him. This close to the stage, the audience was like an unyielding wall, bodies pressed so closely together that not even the tiniest mouse would have gotten through. Fingon tentatively tried to manoeuvre his arm between the bodies of the two young humans who stood directly in front of him. But all it earned him were angry looks and an elbow in the side.

Then he felt a hand on his leg.

"Stella? What in Eru's name are you _doing_?"

"Getting you up!"

" _What?"_

He barely heard her, because now she had bent down, grabbed his calf and tried to lift his leg. 

"Hey you!" she shouted to the man who stood next to her, watching with utter confusion. "Let's get my friend up on the crowd! You know, like Iggy Pop did at Midsummer Rock!"

The man's face lit up with comprehension and he bent down and folded his hands into a leg-up position. And finally Fingon understood. If the crowd was in the way, why not use it to his advantage? 

He put his foot into the waiting pair of hands. Together, Stella and her newly-found helper pushed him upwards, on top of the people standing in front of him.

For a short moment, Fingon was afraid, the humans would simply drop him. But then, suddenly there were hands everywhere, pushing into his back, taking hold of his legs – and then he was moving along. It was like being carried by the strangest current in Arda. Sailing a sea of hands, carrying him towards the stage.

Holding his balance, however, proved more difficult than expected.

In all these years when Fingon had been riding towards Mandos and knocked at the doors of the Halls of Awaiting he had imagined his first meeting with Maedhros in a thousand lurid ways. But even in his wildest dreams he wouldn't have pictured it like this: Sailing towards him via a crowd of helping mortal hands, feet forward to the sound of wailing guitars – and crashing down onto his bottom directly in front of Maedhros' feet, due to a sudden gap in the crowd.

The impact blasted all air from his lungs. For a moment, all Fingon could do was to lie motionlessly on the floor in the darkness, struggling to regain his breath.

Eventually, the blurry shapes at the edge of his vision transformed into human faces. A hand reached out to him. Strong, cool fingers and smooth skin, different from the coarser surface of mortal hands. Fingon got pulled upwards, effortlessly by one hand alone. A left hand.

And this was when they came face to face again, for the first time in millennia. It was only now that Maedhros recognized him.

"Findekáno?"

His voice was hoarse, barely audible over the screaming guitars. But Fingon knew the way his lips moved when they formed his name, knew it by heart.

The light from the stage danced across Maedhros' face. He had kept all his scars. The big one from Thangorodrim that ran diagonally across his face and narrowly missed his right eye. The small one next to the corner of his mouth where a piece of glowing cinder had hit him – he got that one at Losgar. There were new scars, Fingon didn't know about. A vertical cut on his left cheek that looked like an injury from a sharp Sindar blade – a remainder from the massacre at Doriath?

His wore his hair short and was clad in human clothes – a clumsy ensemble of coat and scarf and trousers not unlike to what Fingon was wearing – but his eyes, his pale grey eyes, were unchanged. 

"Maitimo!" 

Fingon realized Maedhros was still holding his hand. Cool fingers pressing down on his. He imagined he could feel Maedhros heartbeat through them, his pulse mirroring the shock and excitement in his face. 

"What.... what in Eru's name are you doing here?" 

"I came for you." For simple words, nothing but the truth. 

Maedhros' eyes went wide. He shook his head, his fingers, suddenly much colder, let go of Fingon's hand. 

" _No_."

"Maitimo?" 

Maedhros shook his head. "No. I...I can't!"

The expression of utter horror on his face alone was enough to shatter Fingon's heart into pieces. But when Maedhros tore away from his grip and pushed through the group of humans that surrounded him, not paying attention that he might hurt them through his superior strength as he moved to the crowd, when all he did was desperately struggling to bring more distance between them – that was the moment the pain hit Fingon like balrog fire.

"No, Maitimo, _wait_! Let me explain, let me...."

Too late. 

The wall of humans had closed behind him as Maedhros made his way along the front of the stage. Fingon could only watch as his tall figure proceeded towards the darkness at the side of the room, leaving disgruntled and confused humans in his wake. 

" _Maitimo_!" 

Eru be damned! He hadn't come this far just to be left like this.

Fingon tore forward, grabbed the young man in front of him by the shoulders before he pushed him away with brute force. He ignored the angry shouting as the surrounding men bumped hard into against their fellow audience members. He also ignored Stella who was yelling his name somewhere in the distance. 

Another broad-shouldered human barred his way, but by now Fingon was acting on battle reflexes. If it had been an orc in front of him and he had his sword with him, it would have transported him straight back to the Nirnaeth.

He stormed forward and for lack of weapons he just bent forward and rammed his head into the man's stomach.

"What the.... ugh!"

The man doubled over and lost his standing. Fingon darted back, push him aside, and dashed into the gap that had formed within the crowd. 

"Hey you!" A voice rang out from the chaos that had spread within the front rows. "You, that hippie with the braids! What the fuck are you _doing_?"

Someone grabbed his shoulder, but Fingon pushed him aside. He was too slow, Maedhros had almost reached the edge of the auditorium. Once he was out of the room, he'd be lost forever. 

"Maitimo! _Please_!"

"Oi! Stop that, you idiot!" Someone grabbed his arm.

Fingon shoved him away.

"Fuck, that _hurt_!" 

People were starting to move away from him, but there wasn't much room in the confined space right before the stage. The air smelt of sweat, smoke and beer, an unpleasant blend that began to mix with the sharp scent of fear.

_They are afraid of me_.  Fingon realized and a sharp pang of guilt rang through his heart. But he had gone too far now. There was no way back. 

A last desperate lurch forward – he was almost through. Maedhros had reached the edge of the crowd and moved towards a door in the wall – a dark rectangle with a glowing "exit" sign that reminded Fingon of the hospital. Once he walked through this door, everything would be too late.

Just a few more yards, just a dozen humans in front of him – he was almost there, almost...

Somebody grabbed his arm again. Fingon jerked forwards, tried to pull his upper arm away, but this time, it didn't work. The man who held him, was too strong – or too desperate. And now another pair of hands reached for his other arm and held fast. Two tall strong humans, clad in dark suits, manifested at his sides with a third one following closely behind. 

Even if he, theoretically, could have broken free, it wouldn't happen without a few broken bones on both sides. And it was too late now, anyway. The few moments it had taken the human guards to take hold of him had been enough to slow him down. Enough to have Maedhros reach the door. The last thing Fingon saw was a streak of copper hair glowing in the lamp-light before the door closed behind him.

" _No_!"

Fingon gasped and for a moment, the shock hit him hard enough for the two mortals to overpower him completely. When he managed to blink away the tears in his eyes he realized the guards had pulled him towards the grid that separated the stage from the audience. Behind was a gap, two or three yards wide. 

Inside, more dark-suited men were waiting while several feet above their heads at the edge of the stage Maglor was in the throes of his grand finale, his voice soaring through the final stanza of a song Fingon recognized as a slightly modernized version of the Lay of Leithian.

Then he looked down into the crowd and his eyes met Fingon's.

His voice broke, but only for the fraction of a moment. The he caught himself and continued the song – but Fingon could tell his heart wasn't in it anymore. The human audience didn't notice, but he knew Maglor well enough to see that his posture had lost his former confidence and that there was the slightest tremble in his voice as he forced himself to finish the song in time.

Once the last note was sung and thundering applause welled up from the audience, Maglor took a bow. As he bent down he gestured towards the guards.

It all happened very fast. The one who was holding Fingon's right arm nodded. Three other guards approached from beyond the grid, grabbed Fingon by the armpits and _pulled_. Fingon jerked and flounced like a fish caught on dry land, it was all very undignified. But to no avail. They pulled him over the fence, his back scraping against the metal edge. Together with the rising panic – _by Manw_ _ë_ _'s eagles, please don't let them put me back into the hospital!_ – pain shot through his back and he felt like every one of his vertebrae was individually scraping across the hard metal edge with no padding whatsoever.

With a thudding sound he landed inside the trench. The guards' hand closed hard on his arms and shoulders as they led him away.


End file.
